MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
My approach is compassionate, nurturing, and collaborative. My teaching style is structured but leaves room for fun. I believe that a student new to their instrument will thrive when they:
- have a parent involved in their practice in-between lessons (parents observing the lesson is highly recommended)
- have fun while learning proper technique to avoid harmful habits down the road
- choose songs that are interesting to them while the teacher picks songs that will help them grow
- are given foundational tools and approaches to further lifelong learning as they get older

ABOUT ME
Kateri Lirio is a music teaching artist and multi-instrumentalist specializing in arts integration in Los Angeles.
A product of the renown Orange County School of the Arts’s Instrumental Music Conservatory, Lirio sharpened her classical piano skills and music theory know-how, earning a “5” in AP Music Theory and completing the rigorous 10-Level Certificate of Merit program by the age of 16. She graduated Valedictorian in 2006.

Lirio continued her music education with a full scholarship to Cal Poly Pomona where she studied piano with GRAMMY award winning, Dr. Nadia Shpachenko and Mike Garson (David Bowie). The university’s learn-by-doing philosophy landed her opportunities to perform the original arrangement of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. She was awarded the Paul Anka Songwriting Endowment in 2009. Lirio graduated Magna Cum Laude and was named “Outstanding Graduate” at the top of her class in 2010.

A professional collaborative pianist since the age of 14, Lirio honed her sight reading skills by playing a number of popular musical theater shows (The Sound of Music, Cabaret, Evita) and has shared the stage with Eden Espinosa (Wicked). Lirio serves as a vocal clinician for the Filipino American Symphony Orchestra and is on the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles teaching artist roster in the Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network.

Lirio also has a passion for social justice and giving back to communities. In 2013, she went on a mission trip to the Philippines to serve at the Hospicio de San Jose where she taught orphans and victims of domestic violence to find their voice. In 2016, she executive produced a collaborative Christmas album where the proceeds went to the Khalsa Peace Corps’s “Share-A-Meal” program, feeding those experiencing homelessness and loneliness during the holidays.

The course “Songwriting is Easy” was developed at the Music Center’s Teaching Artist training intensive.
Lirio is a 2020-2021 MAT (Masters of Arts in Teaching) graduate fellow at the Longy School of Music at Bard College.