Piano with Jonathan C.

I've been playing the piano for 25 years. I started out at age 9, self-teaching myself through improvising and composing for 4 years before I took my first piano lesson. When I was 14, I heard a full recording of Beethoven's 5th and 6th Symphonies and fell head over heels in love with classical music. I went to college for music and received Bachelor of Music degrees in Piano and Composition, then went on to receive a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan, one of the top music schools in the country. As a pianist, I have been featured as a guest artist at the University of Michigan, Washington and Lee University, Sweet Briar College, Garth Newel Music Center, and was presented on the Distinguished Alumni Recital Series at Western Michigan University. I have performed concertos under the batons of Elim Chan, Michael Haithcock, Shane Lynch, and Mark Taylor. As a composer, I have been commissioned to write works for the New Jersey Music Teachers Association, the Garth Newel Quartet, and Latitude 49. Most recently, I adopted the alias Jonathan Aidan to produce solar powered electronic music for yoga. Salute the Sun, the debut album for this project, was released on Earth Day 2018. Over the last 7 years of teaching professionally, I have fallen in love with teaching and enjoy working with students of all ages and levels. I encourage my students to balance their practice time between fundamentals (i.e. scales, graded method books, theory), and passion projects (i.e. what do you REALLY want to play?). I also like to teach applied improvisation, in which you use the music theory you are learning to create your own original music. With this approach, you will establish strong and flexible foundations on which you can learn to master the music you are most passionate about. Students should expect to budget routine practice time between lessons into their schedule. We will work together to devise a practice plan that will work for you. I will hold you accountable to the practice and achievement goals each week so that you can make the most out of the time and money your are investing in music lessons. I look forward to meeting you and helping you to achieve your musical goals!