Kate Bohonos
Rochester, NY 14618
585-244-5556
e-mail: Kate@MissKatesPianoStudio.com
Web site: www.MissKatesPianoStudio.com

Biography

I didn't always love piano. I remember sitting on the piano bench in our dining room as a young girl, wailing at the injustice, while my mother called out "Tennnnnnn Mooooooooore Minutes!!" from the kitchen.

I fell in love with piano as young teen and a few years later I began composing music.

In 1997 I graduated summa cum laude from The Ohio State University where I studied piano, music theory, and composition. I was granted The Ohio State University Excellence in the Arts Award.

While at OSU I was research assistant to Ellie Hisama, Ph.D., and assisted her in her work on Gendering Musical Modernism, published by Cambridge University Press.

I began teaching in 1996, and continued when I moved to Northern Virginia to work for MENC: The National Association for Music Education. While at MENC I was a contributing editor of Exploring Careers In Music, Spotlight on Early Childhood Music Education, and the journals Teaching Music and Music Educator's Journal. In 2002 I left MENC to open my studio and teach full time.

How I Teach

It is important to me that lessons are upbeat, positive, and well-paced. I am teaching a piano and/or composition lesson, but I am also helping to cultivate a love and appreciation for music, the arts, and creativity.

I use the Faber and Faber Piano Adventures series, and supplement with other pieces - classical, jazz, and music from great Broadway musicals.

Theory, ear training, composition, and more recently singing and pitch matching – I’ve found this helps the students make the piano "sing"—are important components of our lessons.

The iPod/mp3 player has proven to be a wonderful new tool. I use a recorder that works with my iPod to record students playing during the lesson. I then let them listen to and critique their own playing – which really helps them to "be their own teacher" when they are practicing at home.

Mp3 technology is also great because it is more practical for me to recommend individual pieces for students to listen to. It is so much easier to download an mp3 file of an important piece for 99 cents than it is to drive to a music store to buy an entire CD for $19.99.

There will be one recital per year, and one smaller performance at a local retirement home.