General Meetings
Our membership gathers together periodically throughout the year to socialize, discuss SMTA business, and hear a musical/professional development presentation. Details about upcoming presenters are below!
All our welcome at our meetings! If you are not an MTNA member please email smtaoffice@gmail.com to inquire about attending either our in-person or online events.
Maintaining a private studio that provides both joy and financial stability can be a winding road. From advertising to fostering relationships, to the magic of autopay, this session will help you cultivate a thriving studio.
October 18, 2024
Katie Levine
It’s every teacher’s dream: students who listen, who care, who translate their lessons into thoughtful, effective practice. That’s the dream: what’s the reality? What actually happens in the practice room? Do we really want to know? Will knowing change anything for the better? A candid report on my year of Practice Lessons—monthly visits into my students’ private piano life. Through brief lesson videos, frank student feedback and my own analysis of the experience, I hope to shed some light on the process and perhaps even toss a little optimism into the mix.
November 15, 2025
Nancy O’Neill Breth
Nancy O’Neill Breth teaches piano and chamber music to students of all ages in the Washington DC metro area. But she grew up in Spokane, and owes her career to that fact, since it meant that she would meet, learn from and befriend for life the inimitable Margaret Saunders Ott. Another debt to Spokane is the Greater Spokane Music Festival (now MusicFest Northwest), which introduced her to her next teacher, Bela Nagy.
At Indiana University, in addition to piano study with Nagy and Gyorgy Sebok, Nancy entered IU’s prestigious Sebok-Gingold-Starker chamber music class. Thus began a life-long passion, immensely enriched by her graduate work at the University of Wisconsin with the eminent scholar and violinist, Rudolf Kolisch.
While living in Mexico City, New York City and Washington, DC, Nancy was founder and pianist of chamber ensembles that performed to critical acclaim. The Mexico City News wrote that her Camerata de Mexico “offers the best chamber music in Mexico.” The Washington Post praised her “superb musicianship” and called her Music Connection concert series “brilliant” and “imaginative.”
Over time, teaching evolved from a side interest into the center of Nancy’s professional life. Her students have been winners or finalists in local, national and international piano and chamber music competitions. Several of them have appeared on National Public Radio’s “From the Top” and multiple teams from the Breth Studio have won MTNA’s national duet competition.
Nancy earned her pedagogy “degree” not from a university but from brilliant teachers and friends such as Seattle’s Peter Mack. She cherishes her own work with younger generations of teachers, and enjoys adjudicating. She is proud to return in that capacity to MusicFest Northwest for the fourth time.
Nancy first presented for MTNA at its conference in Seattle 25 years ago. She’s been invited back a number of times, most recently this year as curator of the day-long Artistry Track of Pedagogy Day.
Breth publications include Practicing the Piano; The Piano Student’s Guide to Effective Practicing; and Parent’s Guide to Effective Practicing, plus a set of piano trios for beginners, Six Songs from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. All are published by Hal Leonard Corp. She has written for Clavier, American Music Teacher and Clavier Explorer.
Nancy invites you to visit her YouTube channels Effective Practicing (short demonstrations of a selection of practice tips), and her Modern Piano Music List, which provides students and teachers with links to performances of over 200 stunning piano pieces from the modern era, and to online sites where the scores can be purchased.
Teaching Students with Special Needs: Diving into the Universal Design for Learning and the Art of Inclusive Piano Teaching
The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework aims to optimize instruction by focusing on accessibility for diverse populations through creating inclusive learning spaces. In this presentation, we will define the “Why, What, and How” objectives associated with UDL and elucidate direct applications in lesson planning and adaptive teaching strategies within the context of the applied piano studio. Piano instructors will gain tools to enhance the accessibility of their instruction through the UDL framework.
One additional question that we had for you is regarding the software that we will be using to present on. Will we be using Zoom? Or is there a different software that SMTA uses for virtual presentation? We are hoping to include a few interactive elements in our session but in order to do so we would need to know the platform in which we will be presenting on.
January 17, 2025
Devin Weckstein & Emily Kuntz
Dr. Emily Kuntz, Ph.D., BCBA has worked as an educator with students with special needs for nearly 20 years. She has worked as a middle school science teacher, special education teacher, behavioral therapist, Board Certified Behavior Analyst, and researcher seeking to improve instruction and inclusion for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After earning her Ph.D. in Special Education from Vanderbilt, she served as Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Oklahoma. She is currently the Learning Specialist Coordinator for the Diocese of Nashville Catholic Schools leading teachers in expanding access to high-quality education for students with diverse learning needs.
Devin Weckstein studied piano pedagogy and performance at the University of Oklahoma and presently maintains a studio of 30 students in Tallahassee, Florida. His current interests include: inclusive piano teaching, piano technology, and elementary jazz pedagogy.
A Nuts & Bolts Approach to Developing Technique
Building technique is a lifelong process. As teachers, we can approach the teaching of technique methodically by dividing the required skills into different categories and following an A-Z curriculum for each skill. Teachers can build technique that will prepare their students for the musical future that they choose.
February 21, 2025
Theresa Bogard
American pianist, Theresa Bogard, is a dynamic, versatile performer dedicated to expanding the canon of traditional piano repertoire. Her early career focused on performances of music by women composers, and she continues to include works by other lesser known composers in her varied programs.
As a recipient of a coveted Fulbright grant, Bogard was able to explore her interest in historical performance practice and fortepiano studying at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague in the Netherlands. That same year she was a top-prize winner in the International Mozart Fortepiano Competition in Bruges, Belgium. A world traveler with a passion for other cultures, Bogard has performed throughout the United States and in 16 different countries on five continents. Her extensive discography includes a wide variety of recordings ranging from solo piano to chamber music collaborations, from music of living composers to her specialty in fortepiano and historical performance practice. She has served on the faculty of the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival in Germany and has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and at the Ravinia Steans Institute with cellist Misha Quint. Since her first concert tour in Brazil in 2007, she has become obsessed with the music of Brazilian composers. Returning to Brazil whenever possible, she has given masterclasses and performances in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro,Cuiaba, Curitiba, Campinas, Ituiutaba, Florianopolis, Goiânia and Porto Alegre.
Internationally known as a pedagogue, she has been honored with numerous teaching awards. Her students have distinguished themselves in numerous piano competitions and been accepted into the top graduate and undergraduate programs in the country including: The Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Manhattan School of Music and Peabody Conservatory of Music among others. She has also served as an adjudicator at numerous regional, national and international piano competitions. Dr. Bogard is a Steinway Artist.
TBA
April 18, 2025
Ryan Worswick
The Right Brain's Role in Music Learning
Although the idea that some people are right-brained and others are left-brained is a myth through and through, new findings from neuroscience clarify how each hemisphere of the brain influences thought, action and learning. In this interactive session, we will dive into the world of the right brain to explore the research surrounding holistic and contextualized thinking and what this means for us as musicians and educators.
May 16, 2025
Katie O’Rourke, NCTM
Katie O'Rourke is a piano instructor, Feldenkrais Practitioner® and Oxygen Advantage® Functional Breathing Instructor offering private lessons and movement coaching in the Seattle area and online. Katie runs the Awareness Through Music Blog, which provides resources on injury prevention, musicians' wellness and mindful pedagogy. As a pianist, Katie has collaborated with Whatcom Symphony, Skagit Opera, and Whatcom Wind Ensemble, and Bellingham Chamber Orchestra. She is a performing member of Ladies Musical Club of Seattle. Katie's other musical interests include Dalcroze Eurythmics, Taubman Technique, and composition.