Fig. 01 — At the instrument
I teach piano in students' homes across the Connecticut shoreline. It's a deliberate choice — people practice on the instrument they own, and lessons work better when the teacher meets it too.
The training behind it is classical: a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Western Connecticut State University and a Bachelor of Arts with a music concentration from the University of Connecticut, studying under Neal Larrabee and Patricia Lutnes — a teaching line traceable, pupil to teacher, back to Beethoven.
What that produces in a lesson is not severity. It's a clear sense of what technique is for. A student might work a Chopin nocturne one week and a chord chart the next; both are musicianship, and I've never seen much reason to rank them.
Students range from six-year-olds to teenagers building audition programs to adults returning after decades. The adults surprise themselves the most.
Fig. 03 — Tempo
Fig. 04 — Instrument
Fig. 05 — Technique
Fig. 06 — Repertoire
Fig. 07 — Library“Started at seven, now twelve, and still asks for extra lesson time.”Sample · Parent, Madison
“I'm 54 and had never played a note. A year in, I played a Chopin prelude for my wife.”Sample · Adult Student, Guilford
“Four years of weekly lessons in our house, straight through to a conservatory audition.”Sample · Parent, Westport