Studied piano since I was 3 1/2.  Performed in church since 5 years old at Sunday School.  First service I played for I was 9.  I played piano or organ for my mother, Astrida Neilson’s, concerts since that age, too.  Worked with the Emhurst Symphony in Emhurst, Illinois while still in High School.  Went to both Northwestern University and Bethany College as a piano performance major, had some jazz training at College of Dupage. Worked with a few rock bands in the Chicago area, one that did a recording studio project of originals, and one that did covers for concerts, shows at clubs and whereever else would hire us.  Moved to New York, where my grandmother who gave me the middle name Ingrid got it to catch on with everyone, and who refused to used my maiden name Cepure, got everyone to call me Neilson instead….(my mother and grandmother had very hard to pronounce names, too, and changed them to Neilson, as well…) I performed in New York, and toured abroad from there from 1982 - 1987.  I then started working as musical director for Mark Schwartz, Broadway producer, in Steamboat Springs, CO as well as doing some other venues like ballet music for Perry Mansfield Dance Studio or R&B with Rick Phillip.  I’d done some songwriting before, but not really enough for a whole collection of originals, but starting in 1994 I began to focus more on songwriting.  Due to some serious health problems I wasn’t able to do much with that for awhile (I feel like I’ve been dead for years) but now am working towards getting a collection into the studio.  I’ve previewed the “rough draft” acoustic, unplugged version that we recorded at the Elim Church for reaction, and it’s doing encouragingly well enough to think I should get it into a studio!  It can be heard at [url=http://www.soundclick.com/sacredproject]http://www.soundclick.com/sacredproject[/url]  Other ideas that were recorded at home that have gotten a positive reaction can be heard at [url=http://www.soundclick.com/anitaingridneilson]http://www.soundclick.com/anitaingridneilson[/url]  I’ve got 3 wonderful children, Barry Gross, age 17, Sarah Gross, almost 16 and Brittany Gross, 8.