Piano Pedagogy Workshop 2025 

Nancy O’Neill Breth, Featured Clinician
Kevin Nitsch, Guest Clinician

Dates: Mon/Tues, June 23–24, 2025

Early Bird Registration (ends June 1)
In-Person/Virtual: $109
Virtual Only: $99
Student: $25
Lunch: $17

Regular Registration (June 2-June 16)
In-Person/Virtual: $129
Virtual Only: $119
Student: $25
Lunch: $17

Online Registration 

(To register after the deadline, please contact Dr. Jacob Ertl, jertl2@naz.edu

Call for Masterclass ParticipantsSubmission Form

  • Deadline: June 15, 2025
  • Ages 5-18, all levels and repertoire accepted
  • Participating students must be in-person
  • Nancy O’Neill Breth (and/or outside panel) will select participants based on variety of levels/ages and repertoire

Schedule 

Monday, June 23, 2025

1:00-2:30 ~ Go Home & Practice!

It’s not enough to say, Go Home & Practice! How can we make practicing stimulating and enjoyable? What will motivate our students to take responsibility for practicing effectively? Examples at the piano of down-to-earth tips—what works best, how, when and why—To include Q&A from Piano Practice Strategies video, with fielded questions ahead of time.

2:30-2:45 ~ Break

2:45-4:00 ~ Technique Without Tears
We need technique, we want technique, but we hate to practice technique…Unless we find a technique regimen that piques our interest, that motivates us, that even makes practicing technique enjoyable. Presenting a curriculum of studies and exercises for all levels is adaptable to any teacher’s philosophy, along with strategies that make it easier to teach and learn everything from scale fingerings to chromatic double thirds.

4:00-4:15 - Break

4:15-5:30 - 2 Clicks Away: Piano Music of Our Time
Unveils a curated collection of 200 online performances of modern music by composers with diverse ethnic and national backgrounds and widely varying styles. Discover how easily teachers and students can explore this new world of sound.  

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

9:30-10:45 ~ Sight-Reading For Life 
No other skill matters more to the future musical life of our students. But sight-reading is rarely No. 1 on a teacher’s list of Must-Cover lesson topics. My solution, and the topic of this presentation: a studio sight-reading system that requires minimal administration and yields maximum results. 

10:45 -11:00 ~ Break

11:00-12:00 ~ Lessons from the Mat: How Yoga Can Inform Breath and Movement at the Piano
Guest Clinician, Kevin Nitsch

12:00-1:15 ~ Lunch

1:15-2:30 ~ Mapping Music: The Road to Understanding

Map every new piece that you plan to study seriously. Some mapping tasks are simple and take only a few minutes, others take longer. But if you set aside 30 or 40 minutes to map a new piece the knowledge you gain from that will streamline your practicing, shorten the time it takes to learn the piece, and even lay the groundwork for memorization.

2:30-2:45 ~ Break

2:45-3:15 ~ Q & A Grab Bag
Including questions from What I Wish I Knew video - questions fielded ahead of time

3:15-3:30 ~ Break

3:30-5:00 ~ Masterclass with Students from the Community

Pedagogy Workshops

    Dennis Alexander 2022
    Peter Mack 2023
    2024: Theresa Bogard
    Nancy O'Neill

    Past Presenters

    2024: Theresa Bogard

    2023: Peter Mack

    2022: Dennis Alexander

    2021: Marvin Blickenstaff

    2019: Ingrid Clarfield

    2018: Julie Knerr

    2017: Jeanine Jacobson

    2016: Forrest Kinney

    2015: Wendy Stevens

    2013: Scott McBride Smith

    Contact

     Dr. Jacob Ertl, jertl2@naz.edu