Since completing my undergraduate degree, I have taught piano privately to a number of students of varying skill levels, from beginner to professional. Primarily I’ve been sought as a teacher of improvisation, and a technical teacher, the latter especially applying to professionals in my local area. Part of my private piano teaching had to do with helping my colleagues at the University of Alberta hone their technique, helping them make repertoire easier and more comfortable. As a teacher, I have become known for offering practical and specific solutions to problems of all kinds. I’ve also become known for my ability to guide students through improvement of scales and arpeggios, etudes, and technical concepts through the use of repertoire.

At the University of Alberta I served as Teaching Assistant for first year theory for three cumulative years. As a Teaching Assistant, I graded assignments submitted by my class section, taught a Friday workshop, made instructional videos for students, and met students one on one to assist them with theory questions.

I spent 18 months teaching at a Suzuki piano school, ultimately leaving to focus more intensely on the final terms of my master’s degree. While Suzuki is obviously geared towards younger students, I was able to exercise my teaching approach of practical audiation-first playing.

At the University of Alberta I studied classical piano performance. I took five years to complete this degree due to a number of factors including a global pandemic, a playing-related injury, and an invitation to extend the degree in order to take an extra year of a teaching assistantship. My research focused on performing standard didactic repertoire and my own original repertoire written using concepts from the aforementioned didactic repertoire. In my final recital, I performed Book 6 of Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, selections from J.S. Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, and my original composition, Handbook, which featured both deterministic and improvised sections. After experiencing a playing-related injury, my research included the additional element of understanding the Taubman approach to piano playing, particularly utilising Bartók’s Mikrokosmos and Bach’s didactic works such as the Inventions, and Das Wohltemperierte Klavier to explore these technical aspects. At the University of Alberta I won the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship, a prestigious award recognizing creativity and dedication in graduate student research. I also held a Teaching Assistantship for first-year theory for three years. I’ll have graduated from this program in August 2024.

While I primarily came into my own as a player and teacher at the University of Alberta, my academic career as a performer/composer began in MacEwan University’s jazz music program, studying Black American, Brazilian, and contemporary avant-garde piano traditions. This has informed my understanding as a classical musician, especially when working with pieces by crossover artists such as Kris Davis, Tigran Hamasyan, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Nitai Hershkovitz, Brad Mehldau, and others. I graduated from this program in April of 2017.