Jazz Vocalist, Pianist, Arranger, Composer, and Educator

Lily Alter is a jazz vocalist, pianist, and educator from Oak Park, Illinois. She received her undergraduate degree in Jazz Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the spring of 2023. There, she was a member of their premiere vocal group, Gold Company, played piano in the WMU Jazz Lab Band, and sang with the WMU Jazz Orchestra. At WMU, she also won Downbeat jazz awards in 2023 and 2024 for Outstanding Performance as a Vocal Jazz Soloist. She began teaching private voice and piano during her senior year at the Fox Music Center and Marshall Music.

She graduated from University of North Texas with her Master’s of Music degree in May of 2025, where she was a teaching fellow in the vocal jazz program, an alto in UNT Jazz Singers, and the vocalist for the 2023-24 One O’Clock Lab Band. At UNT, she directed vocal jazz ensembles West End and Third Street and taught private jazz voice. She continued teaching privately in the Dallas area at Lone Star Music Academy. She regularly performed at piano bars and jazz venues in the Dallas area.

Recently, she completed her artist residency as a songwriter with the Sault Area Art Center in Michigan and was a finalist in the 2026 Ella Fitzgerald Vocal Jazz Competition. She spent the last year as a freelance performer, private contemporary voice and piano instructor, and church music director in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and is excited to be back in the Chicago area to perform and teach.