Approach to teaching
I opened the Breth Piano Studio in 1982, serving all ages but with a focus on pre-college students. My teaching is based on the conviction that any person who loves music and works diligently over time can attain a level of skill and understanding that is the gateway to a rich, lifelong engagement with music.
My role is to show students how to build a strong technique, to help them develop musicianship, and to pass on the musical traditions given to me by my teachers and their teachers before them. My goal is to produce graduates with the physical and musical capacity to thrive and grow as musicians long after lessons are over.
Students in the Breth Studio gain poise and confidence in their abilities by participating in studio performance and in community events, both competitive and non-competitive. Student honors include prizes in local events, at the state level in Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania, among others, and at the national level. Many students have taken part, often on scholarship, in prestigious summer piano institutes and chamber music camps such as Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Indiana University Piano Institute, International Institute for Young Musicians, Itzhak Perlman Music Institute, Virginia Governors School and the Tanglewood Institute.
Graduates of the studio have continued their studies at leading music schools such as Indiana University, Julliard School and the Eastman Conservatory; some now teach on university piano faculties.
Most Breth students, however, go on to other careers, as architects, lawyers, doctors, computer scientists or fashion designers whose lives are enriched by music.
Admission
The Breth studio accepts students on the basis of individual and family commitment to the highest musical achievement of which the student is capable.
An audition/interview is required, and a nominal interview fee is charged that will be applied to tuition if the student joins the studio.