My Story

My first memory of wanting to play the piano came to me approximately at age 5.  I remember watching a television program of someone playing and thinking that I would like to do that.  At the time, my family was living in Saudi Arabia (I was born there), and purchasing a piano was not a feasible idea when my parents knew that they would most likely end up moving back to the United States. 
After settling in Colorado, my parents bought a piano for me and asked a close family friend and neighbor to give me lessons.  It's fun to look back at my first piano book and see how quickly I mastered the pieces and to what degree.  By the time I was in fifth grade, I had exhausted our neighbor's musical education.  She simply told my parents that there was nothing else she could teach me and recommended another teacher.  Though not a professionally trained teacher or pianist, she did teach me several very useful skills including sightreading.  However, she frequently bemoaned the fact that she did not teach me any scales or technique. 
My second piano teacher had a full studio of at least 40 students.  She never could seem to remember what I was playing and never caught on that I was sightreading at each lesson.  My parents finally figured it out though and decided it was time for a new teacher. 
At that point, I decided that it was time for me to learn how to play jazz piano and improvise.  By this time, I had matured into an obnoxious adolescent who knew more than her teacher.  After refusing to do any theory homework and being assigned pieces that were simply easy for me to sightread, I decided to go back to classical. 
My fourth teacher was an amazing classical pianist who had wonderful technique and musicality.  She tried to impart these things to me and helped me through many wonderful pieces, CPE Solfegietto, Beethoven Pathetique, Chopin Raindrop Prelude, Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca, and Debussy's Reverie just to name a few.  She really built up my repertoire and encouraged me to enter competitions. 
By my junior year of high school, music had become something that truly distinguished me from other students.  Not being an extroverted student, I frequently used my breaks to practice.  One year, I connected with a fellow choir student who dreamt of attending Indiana University for vocal performance.  She told me it had one of the best music schools in the country.  It was through her that I found out about Indiana University's summer Piano Academy.  I applied and was accepted! 
To say that the experience there was a rude awakening is an understatement.  There were many very talented and gifted students who were younger than me but playing levels and levels above me.  I was fortunate though to meet both my undergraduate and graduate teachers who are still a continual inspiration.  I practiced many many many hours for my undergraduate and graduate degrees so that I could achieve the level of playing that I wanted to.  I had wonderful experiences in graduate school that included winning the concerto competition and playing with a semi-professional orchestra, playing two chamber music recitals, as well as attending the Bowdoin Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival.  I also taught on the faculty of the university and the community music school associated with the university.  To this day, I have wonderful memories of my students there. 
As my last year of grad school came to a close, I decided that I wanted to continue on and apply for a doctoral degree in piano performance.  The repertoire required for the audition usually comes to a total of 75 minutes; all to be performed by memory.  Memory is something I have always struggled with and after many hours of practicing and little to no social life, I decided to return to Denver.  Shortly after making that decision, a friend called and asked if I would like to join her on the faculty of the Community College of Denver.  I was delighted!
After a few years settling down in Denver, I was pleased to meet my current teacher, Brenna Berman.  Brenna teaches something called the Taubmann Approach and is also teaching me how to teach it!  I am continuously thrilled with the things I am still learning and very happy that my playing continues to improve.