About Me
I have been playing piano for over 30 years and have been teaching piano lessons since 2015. I have a B.A. in music performance from CCSU. I am classically trained so I love playing and teaching classical music (especially the hard stuff). My repertoire (in college) consisted of various Chopin Etudes, Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.2, Ravel Jeux D’eau, Beethoven Sonata Pathetique, Bach Italian Concerto, Mozart Piano Concerto in A, No. 23, K.488, to name a few.
Growing up we had a piano in the house. My brother made me a cassette tape of some classical music and I used to love listening to it. I would try to play what I was hearing and I had a pretty good ear for it, so my dad signed me up for piano lessons. Due to teachers moving away, I didn’t actually have very many professional lessons. In fact, I didn’t even have a piano in my high school years, but the music teacher would let me play the piano in the auditorium. I accompanied the choir in high school for 3 years.
When I got to the end of my high school years, I decided to audition for the music department at CCSU and got in! At CCSU I studied piano with Dr. Linda Laurent, who received a Masters degree from the Julliard School (she’s the best!). I learned so much from her but I also really enjoyed the relationship we had. She always would ask about my life. I enjoyed how she took an interest in who I was outside of school. I try to do the same with my students.
I graduated in 2009 and actually but went into IT work because I didn’t think teaching lessons would be lucrative, but stopped after about 4 years. In 2015, I was working in a music shop where I met my wife and, at the time, she encouraged me to teach lessons. I took her advice and found that I was much better at this than retail (who knew!). I also like to compose.
My musical taste consists of classical, ragtime, soundtracks (movies and video games), and hymns.