FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
Weekly lessons are 45-60 minutes, with semester breaks as outlined in the policy. Tuition is calculated on a specific number of calendared lessons per studio year, with six several free lessons included in that schedule. Flat-rate tuition installments are invoiced by email and paid online on the first day of each month. Commitment is month to month and lessons may be discontinued at any time by the student or by MCMS. Students purchase their own books.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I have thirteen years as a college student studying music, culminating in a PhD in music composition. My piano study has been an integral part of my music education, and it continues to this day. All teachers are also learners. I have taught music courses at UMass Lowell for thirteen years and at Middlesex Community College for seven years. Professional development is important to me. In 2011 I attended a ten-day teacher training intensive in Dublin, New Hampshire. The same summer, I traveled to Germany for a performance of "Crowd Scene," my piano quintet. I spent ten weeks in 2014 at the Banff Centre as a musician-in-residence composing my piano trio, "Ascent," which received a premier in the summer of 2016 in Germany. In summer of 2016, I was involved with the Florida International Toy Piano Festival as a composer-performer, and I was a composer and attendee at "Music as Play," a toy piano festival in Como, Italy during the summer of 2019. My most recent composition is setting for "The Last Hotel," a poem by Jack Kerouac. I continue to study Music Learning Theory and in summer 2022 will be participating in a two-week seminar sponsored by The Gordon Institute for Music Learning.
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
I started playing piano at around seven years old, and loved it. I studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music's prep school as a teenager. Throughout my musical career, the piano has always been my love, the lens through which I worked on composition, music theory, and ear training. I began teaching class piano at the University of Oregon in 2003. After receiving my doctorate there in 2009, I began teaching music theory to undergrads as an adjunct. Shortly thereafter I began teaching private piano lessons, and found this work to be exciting, rewarding, challenging, and life-changing.