To enroll in CelloKids Teacher Training Seminar. The grant covers the tuition.

In August 2020, CelloBello offered its CelloKids Teacher Training Seminar. This 14-session course covered a broad range of teaching topics, including approaches to teaching beginners and more advanced students, incorporating improvisation into the teaching process, practice skills, and explorations of the cello itself and the experience of creating sound on it. Instructors included Paul Katz, Andrea Yun, Madeleine Golz, Mike Block, Sandy Kiefer, and Yari Bond. The recorded sessions were made available for viewing through the CelloBello archive until the end of September, and I subscribed so as not to miss out. Since then, I have watched and reviewed the seminar. It was wonderful, and I've already begun incorporating suggestions from it into my teaching.

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Gakavig Fantasy: Armenian Music for Classical Guitar. The grant covers the master recording.

The project “Gakavig Fantasy: Armenian Music for Classical Guitar” consists of a digital solo guitar album made up entirely of Armenian music comprising original arrangements of Armenian folkloric songs and premier recordings of new Armenian works by living composers. The recording will take place at the Kolanian Studios in Athens, Greece, in August 2021, and aims to expose different communities to Armenian music, thereby fostering interest in the millenary minority culture that has survived centuries of persecution. Being of Armenian descent myself, this project relates directly to my ancestral heritage and holds profound value to me personally. I welcome the opportunity to reaffirm the musical tradition of my forefathers, whilst at the same time enriching my community network in the US.

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1. To purchase scores by a number of historical and living BIPOC composers.

The year 2020 has been one of great turmoil, not only because of the disruptions to our ways of living with the Covid-19 pandemic, but because of the ongoing protests and general outcry against racism across the United States. This has led to wider conversations about diversity across all fields of endeavor, including music. This is something to which I have given much thought and it is clear to me that African-American and BIPOC composers have too often been neglected and in some cases even written out of history. This summer I began exploring some of that repertoire and came across a treasure trove of piano works by Florence Price. I will use my grant to purchase scores by a number of historical and living BIPOC composers including Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Tania León, Alvin Singleton, George Walker, Yaz Lancaster and Elizabeth Baker.  My plan is to not only expand and diversify my own personal repertoire, but to also help me expand the repertoire for my piano students. My hope is to eventually record some of these pieces and to share them with the Diller-Quaile community.

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The grant will defray tuition for the 2nd year of Suzuki Teacher Training at School for Strings.

I will continue to learn teaching strategies and repertoire used by the Suzuki method. This year we will study Suzuki books from 4 to 7. In addition, we will go through the wide range of reading materials dedicated to a variety of aspects of teaching. We will use video recording to analyze different approaches to pedagogical solutions. I am very lucky to have Marina Obukovsky as my mentor again - she is the Head of Piano Department at School for Strings and piano faculty at Preparatory Division at Mannes College. This course allows me to widen my prospective on how I can work more efficiently with students of all ages, using rich experiences of a few generations of Suzuki teachers. It is combined with the philosophical approach of Shinichi Suzuki who believed every child can learn to play an instrument and make music an important part of life experience in all aspects. I would be happy to share my experiences and all that I’ve learned with all interested colleagues at Diller-Quaile School of Music, whether in an individual or group meeting.

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A self-designed study focusing on Latin and African Music: Percussion, Folk Traditions & Rhythmic Styles. The grant covers fifteen lessons.

This grant would support a self-directed course of study with various teachers to learn history, repertoire, technique and stylistic concepts relating to percussion in Latin American and African music. It would include work on hand percussion, examining many of the original instrumental components of these folk and dance-based musical styles, and adapting their rhythms and functions to the piano. At Diller-Quaile we perform and share music from many cultures; this study would serve to bring greater awareness and depth to the music we present in many contexts including our year-round Class repertoire, the Summer Music Program, and the Songs for Singing and Sharing project.

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