What a Summer!

Summer 2023 has been one of the best in my life. Lots of wonderful things happened, and three events have me feeling inspired and energized for an amazing year of piano lessons. I am honored to get to work closely with some of the most wonderful and dedicated piano teachers.

Participants and faculty of the Professional Development Levels Courses (Levels I and II) of the Gordon Institute for Music Learning.

I will forever remember the summer of 2023 as the season I became a faculty member in piano for the Gordon Institute for Music Learning, an honor that I am deeply proud of. I was a student in Level I in 2018 and Level II in 2022, and was invited to apply for internship some months ago. I got to join the faculty and participants, as in intern, at Eastern Michigan University in June for an intensive week of learning, peer teaching, musicianship, bonding, and so much more!

After a few weeks back home teaching summer lessons, we were off again, this time to the Chicago area for two conferences, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) and the Gordon Institute for Music Learning (GIML) international conference.

Krista and myself posing in front of the Music Moves for Piano booth at NCKP, moments before our presentation “Off-bench” where we explored how activities away from the piano can contribute to success at the piano.

(Left to right) Robert Baldwin, Janna Olson, me, and Krista Jadro. Four dedicated Music Moves for Piano teachers hanging out in Chicago between conferences.

Janna and Krista are part of the GIML faculty, and Robert is the creator of Play and Sing with Robert and my Level I and II PDLC pal! Krista and Janna are also on the GIML piano faculty and I am ever grateful to get to work with them.

After NCKP and a couple of days off, we headed to Oak Park. The first event of the conference was a meeting where faculty approved me to become faculty. From then on, we were in full GIML mode! Our beloved Marilyn Lowe was scheduled to be the keynote speaker for this conference, but since she passed unexpectedly, the Music Moves community did their best to deliver the keynote in her honor.

I presented a session at the GIML conference on how non-piano teachers can adapt Keyboard Games for their music classes.

Group discussion about research amongst the GIML piano teachers.

I am exhausted all over again just thinking about everything I did this summer. It was a lot, but wow was it life changing and invigorating. I am ready to start the new school year now!