Piano with Pamela K.

PAMELA has been teaching piano since the age of 15, and then after her graduation with honors in piano performance from the State University College at Fredonia, NY, where she studied with Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, acclaimed author, concert pianist and recording artist, the late Claudette Sorel. Pamela's many successful students have studied with her privately and also at Manhattan's St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's Independent School near Columbia University, Upper East Side's Trevor Day Independent School, and the Lyceum Kennedy French School. Her solo repertoire is large and varied, and she encourages her students to explore new music as well as the standard literature. Pamela balances her instinct for evoking the the student's trust and desire to learn with the requisite task of cultivating disciplined practice habits. Her more advanced proteges' consistent growth in technical skill, interpretation, and musicianship emanate naturally from her guidance, inspiration and tutelage. Pamela brings her extensive professional music background to bear as a piano instructor whose special gift for working with children and young adults is impressive and unique. She is a dedicated mentor, displaying care and patience with the young beginner, as well as a passion for imbuing her students with the love of music and the joy of learning to play the piano. *** Lesson Details *** My students' time with me is quite structured so as to make the most of our time together. We begin with assigned technical work, scales or arpeggio and other various technical exercises (I rely on the Dozen-a-Day series and even my adults use these as well as the children!) Then we begin to work together on the assigned repertoire, which is geared to the level of advancement and a balanced menu is vital (classics, modern, contemporary, early jazz and rock for fun). We sometimes end up by looking thru music for the near future and I will often sit down and play things I think will "light up" their young faces and give them pieces to look forward to playing themselves! *** Studio Equipment *** Lessons are given on a high-gloss black 5'9" Kohler & Campbell grand piano. *** Specialties *** I am classically trained and therefore I am best suited to teach piano from a classical vantage point. I believe in a balanced repertoire. As soon as a child/adult can play the easier compositions of the baroque and classical composers, we then begin to add composers such as Tansman and Kabalevsky, modern composers who wrote for children, as well as the easier romantic compositions. I use the d'Auberge and Thompson method books as well as the Burnam "Dozen-a-Day" technical exercise books for the young students. We learn music theory, study the lives of the great composers, learn to use the metronome as well as perform compositions from memory at twice yearly recitals.