Michelle Cann is making history as the newest female Caribbean American to join the piano faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music. Artina McCain (AM): It is a pleasure for me to interview you after watching your career blossom over the past decade. Let's start at the beginning. How did you get started with piano? Michelle Cann (MC): We had mu...

"Assumptions:" Challenging the Racial and Economic Disparities in our Field During COVID-19with Leah Claiborne, Desireé González-Miller, & Artina McCain Did you enjoy this webinar? Please complete our brief survey to help us improve our webinar series and continue to bring you the highest quality resources in piano teaching. 

Quality repertoire selection is crucial for helping our piano students move from the intermediate to advanced levels, and the same is true for university-level students. Yet, persuading teachers to use excellent repertoire composed by women and other minorities remains a challenge. As teachers, we often succumb to using the repertoire we know best,...

The process of redesigning the Piano Magazine gave us, as an organization, the occasion to reflect and innovate. During that process, it emerged that it would be valuable to consider issues and provocative questions of our time that impact our professional and personal lives as musicians. This column is intended to pro...

Did you enjoy this webinar? Please complete our brief survey to help us improve our webinar series and continue to bring you the highest quality resources in piano teaching.

In her book Hidden Figures (the basis for the 2016 movie of the same name), Margot Lee Shetterly observed, "The electrified fence of segregation and the centuries of shocks it delivered so effectively circumscribed the lives of American blacks that even after the current was turned off, the idea of climbing the fence inspir...

The Debussy Debate With this issue, we celebrate the centennial of Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Pianists and piano teachers hold him in high esteem as one of the great composers, and, as proof, we still teach and perform his works (and dedicate magazine issues to him). His bold experimentation with harmony, breaks from traditional rules, and colorfu...

Currently, an estimated 40 million students are learning piano in China, and the number continues to grow. In this age of the China boom, there is also a burgeoning interest in the West, leading more Chinese to study abroad than ever before. Now practically any active piano teacher, regardless of where she teaches, is likely to interact with Chines...

Walk a mile in your neighbor's shoes: Diversity in theteaching studio  by Rachel Kramer and Bennyce Hamilton Music is the universal language.​ This phrase has been in my vocabulary since I was young enough to understand what it meant. As I have become a performing musician, music educator, and community arts participant, I continue to believe ...

Q: Is piano study for everyone? Why or why not?  A: There's an answer to this question that I WISH were true. And there's another answer that probably IS true. WISH piano study was for everyone because I believe that everyone—at any age, with any level of ability, from any socio-economic or ethnic background—can benefit from piano study in mea...

In today's diverse world, piano teachers - even those in the U.S. - increasingly require special insight and compassion to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by working with students fro m a variety of cultures. Government and private industry employees are routinely required to complete diversity training on an annual basis. As the U....