Piano with Leslie C.

I love to teach piano students of various levels helping them to achieve their unique goals on piano! I specialize in teaching advanced classical repertoire, jazz piano improvisation and other popular music styles. I enjoy helping students develop their piano technique to a professional level and also the harmonic vocabulary necessary to decode complex classical pieces. If a student has a passion for jazz improvisation, I will take them through many genres of jazz piano: (Swing, stride, blues forms, bop, bossa nova, etc.). As they learn to arrange jazz standards, I introduce them to various soloing techniques and harmonic devices. This is a joy to me. If a student is more focused on classical repertoire: I am familiar with and love to study a large amount of the piano repertoire: All sonatas by Beethoven, Mozart, Hadyn, Schubert, Clementi. Baroque pieces - Bach WTC, Partitas, many Scarlatti sonatas. Romantic pieces - all Chopin Etudes, Scherzo, Ballades, Waltzes and Mazurkas, Grieg lyric pieces, large works of Ravel, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, etc. I have sight read through much of this repertoire and always love to teach students how to handle these pieces technically, and how to express them in their unique way within the stylistic considerations of the piece.   I have a master's degree in piano performance from the Juilliard School where I studied with Jerome Lowenthal. I also have an extensive background in jazz improvisation, and I have taught both classical repertoire and jazz improvisation at local colleges. I studied jazz piano with Terry Trotter, Harold Denko and Gary Dial in New York. Currently I am on the piano faculty of Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, Ca. I am also a worship leader and have 25 years' experience with piano improvisation for worship services.