Pianist Progress Studio LLC

With the school year fully up an running, the studio is complete and I am feeling inspired by my students and my friends! Thank you to everyone who continues to inspire and encourage me to be my best!

Just ONE WEEK until we take the stage to perform Elgar's Cello Concerto with the fabulous Sterling Elliott!

A program of British music, a phenomenal soloist, and your Grand Rapids Symphony. What's not to love? ▶︎ grsymphony.org/elgar

Performing Arts Spotlight! Get your tickets while they’re still available to see Grand Rapids’ Circle Theatre in Little Shop of Horrors. Running now through September 24th.

Little Shop of Horrors – Circle Theatre SEPTEMBER 8-10| 14-18 | 21-24RATED: PG-13 One night meek floral assistant Seymour stumbles upon a new breed of plant that he names “Audrey II.” He soon discovers this foul-mouthed, R&B-singing carnivore – named after his coworker crush – is out of this world, hungry for blood, and intent on ...

We were having so much fun practicing Blinking Stars by Paula Dreyer in our lesson today!

Paula Dreyer, Blinking Stars

Congratulations to all of my fantastic students. You all did wonderful in the recital on Friday. It was our first studio recital and it was a big success. I can’t wait for the many many more recitals we are going to have in the future.


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What a great program. It is always such a pleasure to be able to see live performances in my community. And it is an added bonus when I run into one of my students there.


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Favorite moment from this month: A couple of weeks ago I had a student come in with a piece he's been working on for about three months, Schumann's The Wild Horseman. They had starting to get frustrated and I was sensing that it might be time to move on. But then during the lesson I just decided to go about teaching the piece in a different way. I said why don't we take a step back and re-think how we are working on the piece in the lesson and at home. After some discussion about how he was practicing the piece on his own, it was clear that there was just no sense of structure or direction in his practicing and he was just overwhelmed. I said:

"Ok, this week focus on only practicing the hands separately and in small chunks at a time. For the first day just practice playing each hand position in between the shifts and only spend about 15 to 30 seconds on each hand. Then the next day do the same thing with one measure at a time. In other words, play the left hand measure 1 3 to 5 times really well (and up to tempo as much as you can) with all of the energy and excitement that you want the final product to be. Then switch and do the same thing with the right hand. Then move on to the next measure. On the third day do the same thing with two measures, then with four measures, then with eight measures, etc."

By the end of the lesson I could see something different in his eyes and I was very excited to see what he was going to come back with the following week.

Well, the next week he arrived in his lesson and I knew something had clicked at home. He sat down and played through the entire piece with energy and (relatively accurate) precision. I asked him how he felt about it and he said and he told me that he was very proud of what he was able to accomplish. I'm so proud of him and I can't wait to see how much he continues to develop the piece and make it his own.