Piano Instructors / Keyboard Instructors

 

Jo Harrington
Jo Harrington has had many years teaching experience. She has studied both classical and popular styling with chord, fill-ins, introductions, and stride methods. Jo enjoys working with all ages, She has taught many retired men and women who have wanted to play all their lives but never had the opportunity before. Telephone: 775-1662 or 775-2733, x110

 

 

Patricia Clarke Jalbert
A native of Montreal, Canada, Mrs. Jalbert has lived in the United States since 1956. She began study of the piano at the age of six and by the time she was a teenager, she had won three successive All-Canada Piano Competitions and has been a soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

She is a graduate of the McGill Conservatory of Music and holds a Licentiate in Piano from that institution, having studied with Lorraine Gadbourey in Montreal and with Isidor Phillips in New York City. Mrs. Jalbert is a respected interpreter of the works of Mozart, Chopin, Debussy and St. Saens. She also enjoys playing duo-piano arrangements for four hands.

She has been a teacher of the piano since 1957, and she has accompanied her husband since before their marriage in 1974. She is a highly sensitive and imaginative vocal coach and she loves to work with singers who seek help with the stylistic interpretation of their music. Mrs. Jalbert has been a member of the Portland Rossini Club since the spring of 1993. Mrs. Jalbert can be reached at:

 

 

 

Alice Peterson
Alice Peterson founded the Joy in Music Piano Studio in January 2000. Alice entered piano teaching as a midlife career change, but has been connecting people with music for most of her life. Besides providing private lessons and teaching adult recreational piano groups, her varied experience includes developing and teaching introductory classical music workshops (Classics for Kids), teaching home school music, working with church youth choirs, daycare music and movement classes and directing music programs at a summer camp. Her current studio, the JOY IN MUSIC Piano Studio, consists of roughly equal numbers of children and adults. Alice sees music as a gift from God meant for all, not only for specialists, and delights in helping people develop the skill to express themselves musically.

Alice started piano at age nine and continued through high school. While earning a degree in Religious Education, she continued to study piano and earned some music credits for history and theory classes along the way. After a few years of volunteering in the area of her education and working at nonmusical jobs, she decided to pursue music studies further. She enrolled as a piano major working toward a music education degree at the local university, earning another 30+ hours of music credits. Convinced that she didn’t want to be a teacher, she moved in the direction of another love—books—and worked in libraries and in retail bookstore management for about a decade. Marriage, motherhood and homeschooling moved her back into the realm of education, and she discovered that one-to-one and small group teaching was a totally different thing from the large general music classrooms she had envisioned when she rejected the idea of being a music teacher. What’s more, she discovered aptitudes for teaching both children and adults. Music—specifically piano—and education met once again as she resumed piano studies with a focus on pedagogy.

Alice teaches all ages year round. Her approach is to encourage JOY in making music, to teach the sequential SKILLS necessary to play music, and, as the student matures musically, to foster INDEPENDENCE in approaching music. She is particularly interested in helping students develop functional piano skills so that music is integrated into daily life. She enjoys teaching children and teens as well as adult beginners and refreshers. Her flexible teaching schedule has included many home schooled families.

Alice supplements her formal education through personal study and by attending music teacher's conventions, publisher workshops, and regional training opportunities. She has received specialized training to teach adult recreational piano groups. She choses a topic for personal study each year (some past topics: Music and the Brain, Women Composers of the 19th century, Teaching Adults in Groups). She belongs to the Music Teachers' National Association and the Maine Music Teachers' Association and participates actively in several online piano teachers’ forums. 

 

 

 

Casie Rizza

Casie Rizza graduated from The University of Maine in December 2010. She studied Piano Performance with Bajcka Voronietzky for the entire length of the undergraduate program. Her experience includes, but is not limited to, a variety of choral accompaniment, serving as the jazz vocalist for several groups, and being invited continually to record vocal tracks at Sony in Foster City, California. Her journey as a pianist started very early on when she began taking lessons with Sarah Pendleton at the age of 8. Casie was asked to start teaching for Sarah at her studio in Bangor, Maine and continued there for 7 years.Casie is originally from Winterport, but has recently moved to Biddeford with her husband. She is learning a whole new aspect of music with her new position at Starbird Piano Gallery in piano retail.Her experiences as a musician has shaped her to be a well rounded asset to the music community in Portland.

 

Mrs. Rizza can be reached at 207-710-1880

 

 

 

 

Carol Starbird

Carol has a B.S. in Elementary Education and taught school for many years. She combined her interest for teaching and the piano; and has been teaching piano for 22 years.

She studied with Frances Grasse for 11 years, where she also received Recital training. She is a member of the Maine Music Teachers Association and the National Music Teachers Association. She attends all the latest piano workshops in the area to learn the latest methods and techniques.

She works full time Monday through Friday teaching piano students starting at age 4. She teaches at area retirement homes, and is also teaching the Starbird Lowrey Organ Class. She can be reached at 409-4841 or 899-3352.

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