Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracy Glenz.
Hi Tracy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve been playing music my whole life — my parents tell me that at 2 years old I would sit at our piano and figure out the melodies of songs I heard on the radio by ear. I started Suzuki violin lessons when I was 4, and piano lessons when I was 7. I still play both, but in 2015, at the age of 43, I picked up a bass guitar for the first time at She Rock She Rock’s Women’s Rock n Roll Retreat and found my match. I also discovered a passion for musical theater in 2010 when I played violin in my first pit orchestra for a community theater in Eau Claire WI, my hometown, and now I play for several productions a year in the Twin Cities and Eau Claire at professional and community theaters. I’ve picked up the viola for a couple of shows, and this year I played my first show on upright bass. I also play bass guitar and violin and sing in the psychedelic cover band Just Ghostly.
I fell in love with She Rock She Rock’s mission at that Women’s Rock n Roll Retreat and stayed involved with the organization, and I’m now the Operations Manager. Our main programming is the camps for women, girls and gender-expansive folks, but we also hold jams and fundraisers.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I love playing music, but I didn’t enjoy lessons as a kid (I kept going more out of a sense of duty than anything else) and I was terrible at practicing what my teachers wanted me to play. So when I left home for college I stopped playing altogether, and none of my careers up to now have been music related — I have degrees in civil engineering and occupational health. I didn’t come back to music for 20 years, until I played in that first pit orchestra in 2010. And I think I practiced about 6 hours a day for weeks to get some of my chops back for that show! While I still tend to be a procrastinator when it comes to practicing, I’m playing music because it’s absolutely what I want to do, and who I am. And I’m now so grateful that my parents made me keep taking lessons. Learning new instruments as an adult is harder, at least for me, but I have that foundation. But one of my favorite things about working at She Rock She Rock is seeing people of all ages pick up an instrument for the first time (or the first time in a long time) and live their rock star dreams.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
She Rock She Rock is a non-profit co-founded in 2009 by my friend Jenny Case, and it started first as Girls Rock n Roll Retreat (GRRR) in 2007. So 2026 is our 20th year of GRRR! Our mission is to empower girls, women and gender-expansive folks through the art of music. Jenny started GRRR/She Rock because as a teen she found it almost impossible to find other girls and women to play in bands with — there just weren’t a lot of women playing guitar, bass, or drums at any level — and she felt motivated to change that for future generations. We now teach up to 140 kids age 9-16 in our one-week summer camps, and we have the long-weekend Women’s Rock n Roll Retreat, usually in April, for up to 30 women aged 19+. All of our coaches at both camps are women or gender-expansive, so they’re role models as well as mentors for the campers. There’s still gender inequality, of course, but Jenny’s vision has made a huge difference. There are so many more women in the Twin Cities music scene, and many of them came through She Rock in some way — as campers, coaches, volunteers or participants in any of our other programs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sherocksherock.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/she_rock_she_rock/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sherocksherock
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/girlsrockmn
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/tracy_taylor_g/
Image Credits
Katy Kelly
Molly Jay
