Bio

Overview:

I have been teaching piano professionally for over 30 years, having started before graduating from college.  I teach all ages (children and adults), from the littlest beginners to advanced pianists preparing for a possible music career.  My approach for beginners is fairly traditional, focusing on technique and note-reading from the very first lesson.  I believe that classical music is the best stuff out there for piano training—and some of the best music ever written!—but I also believe that good technique and good practice habits can be applied to, and developed through, a wide variety of musical genres.  I also love jazz and pop music, and I readily venture into those realms in my teaching if it seems like that would better suit the needs and interests of a student.  I have also composed countless original pedagogical works and arrangements over the years, custom tailoring them to my students' needs of the moment.  I “meet my students where they are,” adjusting lesson plans to fit each student’s goals, abilities and particular life circumstances.

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Why Hire Me? More About My Teaching:

Perhaps my most significant gift as a teacher is that I have always had a natural ability to identify and understand a student’s strengths and challenges, and know what they need at any given moment.  When a student is struggling with a piece, or a particular passage, I can almost always “put myself inside a student’s head” and tell exactly what’s making it hard for them—whether it’s a mental or technical issue, or both—and I can give them real nuts-and-bolts methods for how to address it.  I teach my students how to practice, and a variety of ways to attack any given problem.  I show them how to analyze and break things down, from practicing a new technique to deciphering complex notation on the page.  I tell them what I myself would do in my own practice.  Learning a piece and building one’s piano skills involves the same fundamental principles for beginners through the most advanced players.  It’s the same stuff, just applied at different levels.

 

I have a well-tested, rock-solid method of teaching formidable piano technique and note-reading skills from the ground up.  At the same time, I readily modify my approach when it’s clear that a student needs that, or “learns differently.”  In fact, one of the things that keeps me interested in teaching after so many years is that each student is unique, and I enjoy the challenge of tapping into what’s going to make things click for them.  As soon as you think you know The One and Only Way to Do Things, you’re going to hit walls.  Having a core belief system is crucial, but so are flexibility and creativity in approach.  I am also good at adapting that approach for practicality in accordance with a student’s life circumstances, particularly with respect to busy teens and working adults.

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I believe in disciplined, methodical work coupled with positive reinforcement.  I tell my students that, with the right approach and with enough practice and patience, they can figure anything out.  I challenge my students while also setting them up for success.  I have a natural gift for building strong rapport with my students, which goes a long way towards having them buy into what I’m telling them and naturally facilitates their overall progress.  

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I have a vast knowledge of the pedagogical piano repertoire that is decades in the making.  Accordingly, I don’t adhere to any one published piano method series for repertoire.  I draw upon a wide variety of resources from multiple genres when choosing music with each student, and I am constantly adding to it with my own pedagogical compositions.

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Teaching piano is the one single thing I do better than anything else.  For beginners through advanced pre-college level pianists, I do not believe you will find better instruction anywhere.

 

My Background:

I began my own piano studies at an early age, learning from my aunt for about 4 years before entering the Preparatory Department of the Cleveland Institute of Music.  There my teachers included Gloria Fok, Wesley Ball, Jacqueline Buckley Platten and Marshall Griffith.  I entered Northwestern University as an undecided major but was encouraged by a caring instructor, Marlene Nepstad Chatain, to enter the NU School of Music.  I did, and there I was fortunate to have been mentored by the late, brilliant and inspiring pianist Deborah Sobol, perhaps best known as a co-founding member of the world-renowned Chicago Chamber Musicians.  Debbie was as passionate about her teaching as she was about performing.  She took a special interest in me, emphasizing that I had something special to offer.  Debbie taught me an ingenious method of piano instruction, which I have utilized successfully ever since.  After 5 years with Debbie, I then completed my formal training under the venerable Mary Sauer of the Chicago Symphony, achieving my Masters Degree in Piano Performance at DePaul University. (Incidentally, Mary Sauer's teaching lineage, and thus my own, goes directly back to Bela Bartok, one of my favorite composers.)

 

My music career has included much performing as a chamber musician and accompanist, as well as a delightfully unexpected turn into choral directing since the early 2000’s.  But all the while, piano teaching has remained the core of my professional career.  Both of my parents are teachers, so I think it must be in my DNA given how naturally it came to me and how much I love it.  Piano teaching has been a defining part of my continued development both as a musician and as a person, and I remain as passionate about it as the day I started.  Each new student and each new piece makes everything new all over again.  Teaching piano has enriched my life more than I ever could have imagined.  I look forward to sharing this with my students for many more years to come.