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As a teacher: I am passionate about connecting with students and helping them to take the reins of their education. I run a busy private studio at the non-profit Uptown School of Music. I’m a very active festival adjudicator and clinician. I designed the youth ensemble program at the Waterloo Jazz Festival, which has run for about a decade and sent many students on to professional work. I frequently give coachings and workshops on the business of music, the process of collaboration, and the science and art of learning. I’m an examiner with Conservatory Canada and the United States Music Certification Exams in China. Lately, I am particularly known for coaching contemporary commercial singers toward more connected and nuanced performances, and for teaching improvisation in various styles such as jazz, blues, pop, and beyond.
As a performer: I’m most active as a jazz pianist, jazz band leader, contemporary chamber musician, voice coach/accompanist. My trio is seen regularly at the Jazz Room, and I try to sit down in the recording studio with a colleague every year, if I can; recent collaborations have been with vocalist Amanda Kind and Miss Tammy Darling.
Here's a video of Amanda and me, performing Under the Bridge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBknKcnkABo&ab_channel=AmandaKind
I frequently work in musical theatre, most recently music directing for RENT and Spring Awakening. I have fronted a Ben Folds Five cover band, played keys in a Motown band, and toured in a group championing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, among many other varied projects and collaborations, totalling approximately 3,000 performances.
I’m a very passionate community builder, working frequently with arts organizations in production and advocacy, as well as providing opportunities to up and coming artists. For more information on a recent community building project, visit: kwkiwanismusicfestival.com/lessons
I hold a BMus in Composition from Laurier, and a MMus in Contemporary Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
My primary research interest is in various aspects of learning and cognition – specifically memory, acquisition of physical skills, autodidacticism, motivation, and creativity as it applies to the learning process for traditionally non-creative knowledge sets (for instance, math or history).
A current passion is the examination of competition and its effect on competitors (particularly young children). I am in the design phase of a research project with other NYC-based academics to explore the effect of music competitions on the self-esteem and enthusiasm for learning in young music students, by establishing a free music festival (a rarity in the USA); this festival will help us to explore competitive vs non-competitive classes and their effect on students’ desire to continue pursuing music study.
- 2003 Winner, Laurier Concerto Competition
- 2004 Waterloo Region Arts Awards – Leading Edge Category
- 2010 K-W Community Foundation grant – The Jazz Room
- 2011 Trillium Capital Grant – The Jazz Room
- 2013, 2014, 2015 – Manhattan School of Music, President’s Scholarship
- 2018 ArtsFund Waterloo Grant for LISTEN! Recording fund for emerging artists
- 2025 WLU Faculty Teaching Award nomination
Various other grants for establishing concert series in Waterloo Region.
I am always happy to meet with any student for advice on their career trajectory, collaboration, concert design, community outreach, and their own learning. Do feel free to get in touch, even if you’re not in one of my classes.
Students seeking ideas for arts admin volunteer opportunities, or other community outreach options, are encouraged to contact me.
- Harpology Vol 1 & 2 – art music for solo harp, commissioned for RCM Harp Syllabus
Selected Recordings
- 2017 Reckoning: Live at the NUMUS Contemporary Piano Summit – solo album
- 2001 United As One - Blessed Sacrament Choir (accompanist/soloist), album
Selected Compositions
- 2019 Theatrical Score, Chelsea's Story, dir. Pam Patel (MT Space)
- 2004 Theatrical Score, Tales from the Snowy Woods, dir. Stuart Scadron-Wattles (Theatre & Company)
- 2021 Brott Opera – commercial video recording (new work, Barbara Croall)
- 2020 Brott Opera – commercial video recording, Filumena (scenes, John Estacio)
- 2019 Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra – commercial recording of The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier and Abby Richardson-Schulte
- 2018 Nu Ears Ensemble (Open Ears Festival) – multiple premieres
- 2018 For Bass Clarinet & Industrial Orchestra (Glenn Buhr), premiere (NUMUS)
- 2018 Music Director, Spring Awakening (KW Musical Productions)
- 2015 Music Director, Encounter (Private production in Shanghai, China)
- 2014-18 Writer/Performer, Lost Ones - IMPACT Theatre and Movement Festival, Theatre Gargantua series, University of Waterloo concert series
It’s wonderful to teach at Laurier, where I studied for my BMus; our school taught me critical thinking, open-mindedness, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit. The composition and piano programs were very generous to me – I was encouraged to create projects with passion and imagination, and to pursue their completion with the mindset of an artist. I try to pay that forward by creating opportunities for student choice and tailoring my courses to the evolving needs of the members of my classes. My goal is to train students to master their own learning process, so they can be agents of change.