Christine M Sipes

From age two Christine loved music and books.  Her dad bought her a miniature baby grand piano and she proudly used one finger to learn the melody of songs she heard on the record player.   At age four, when her mom saw that she was reading  Dick and Jane books, she was promptly enrolled in school.   Taking piano lessons, playing for various churches in the neighborhood and using her library card weekly fed her with music and books until she went to college at sixteen.  At Berklee College of Music her soul was further fed by a talented faculty and jazz curriculum.  She formed a female quartet, performed as a pianist and vocalist, and played with a big band.  She married and started a jingle writing business, composing catchy tunes for local New England businesses.  When her children were born, she continued to teach piano privately, went back to get her Masters and taught middle school music in an urban setting for over thirty years. While teaching she began to write about what she missed as a music teacher.  This led to her first book being published and being selected as a participant in the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program.    In 2020, COVID forced her into   retirement, but she continues to work on her writing projects.  Her passions are finding those unknown or little known jewels in history like Sister Rosetta Tharpe or James Europe Reece or Thomas Smallwood.  Her favorite quote is by her favorite writer James Baldwin "It is true that the more one learns, the less one knows".