Studio One: Building Studios that Build Musicians. From left to right: Rene Johnson, NCTM( “Building a Better Studio with Policies that Shape Success”), Mark Atkins “From Battlefield to Concert Hall: Military Concepts for Music Studios. Dr. Hyrum Arnesen “Parent Partnering: Guiding Students to Confidence: Building Habits to Manage performance Anxiety”. Dr. Paulo Steinberg “Tech Skills: Engaging Social Media in the Private Studio”. Michele Caragan, “Pedagogy: Alternative Ideas for Group Lessons”. Jeanette Winsor, “Health and Wellness: Self-care to Enable Playing for a Lifetime.”

Highlights from the 2025 VMTA State Conference at George Mason University—music teacher panels, inspiring classes, performances, and creative teaching ideas. This past week was the VMTA Annual State Conference, held at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. It was great to be with other music teachers, make new friends, attend many classes and hear some wonderful music. I came away inspired and refreshed.

Here are some of the classes and performances I attended:

Leadership Summit—-overview of MTNA offerings, discussion about VMTA.

Why You Need Space to Create—finding hope through music after tragedy hits.

MTNA Certification Panel—I participated in a panel of five teachers who covered the five projects required for certification applicants. (Candace Cleary, Rachel Harmatuk, Aphrodite Mitsopuolou, Jennifer Scott, Rene Johnson).

Broadening the Piano Studio Repertoire: The Richness of Latin American and Spanish Composers—learned about the Venezuelan equivalent of IMSLP. There is some beautiful music there!

VMTA Teacher’s Recital—quite an amazing recital. Here’s a playlist of the music from the conference——the teacher’s recital, the concerto winners: YOUTUBE Teacher’s Recital and Concerto Winners Repertoire.

Studio One: Building Studios that Build Musicians (including topics such as alternative ideas for group lessons, Managing Performance Anxiety, Polices that Shape Success, Make Plans to. Continue Playing for a Lifetime, Capability Development). I participated in this panel talking about policies.

Sparking Creativity in your teaching and playing—-paint chips, paper plates, eraser animals, improvisation.

Sight-Reading for Life—-Nancy Breth says we should sight-read every day of our life for 5 minutes/day.

Crafting Effective Endings—Francesca Hurst. Very excellent class. Artistry and the last 2-3 measures of a piece. She demonstrated use of sound, silence, and gesture to elevate endings of pieces.

Enhancing Well-Being: Strategies for Reducing Stress—Studio activities for emotional and mental well-being: group lessons 2x a month, informal recitals encouraging ensemble performance, facilitate peer performance sessions for supportive feedback, goal-setting, 3 good things-3 things for improvement, collaborate with other studios, community outreach.

VMTA Banquet—gorgeous table decor (thank you to Caroline Kim), fun entertainment (thank you Bharti Soman and friends), tasty food (thank you GMU).

VMTA Concerto Winner’s Concert— accompanied the the McLean Symphony. The soloists were amazing: Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and a cellist.

Studio Creativity-practical, time-efficient strategies that engage and retain students—more improv demonstrations—work on recital pieces AFTER the recital and take some liberties as you improvise.

Rare Recital Treasures—by Kevin Chance, MTNA President, walking through his new book he compiled with Ingrid Clairfield—-interesting repertoire, great pedagogy tips!

Sight-Singing in the Piano Studio—fun. I really should sing more with my students!

Independent Music Teacher’s Forum—-Some interesting points including some things in which I have different perspectives.

State Competitions—I spent an hour as a volunteer helping with the State Competitions. I greeted contestants as they arrived, tried to help them feel more at ease, helped them prepare their music for the judges and answered questions in the hallway. I enjoyed listening to the young people play. They were remarkable! Young and impressive!

Break Room—-This is such a fantastic addition to the conference. We spend all day listening, talking. This room is for quiet, introspection. The room was filled with affirmations, 4-5 worksheets with guided thinking about strengths, ways to improve, some battery powered tiny lights in jars, some Mandala coloring pages and markers, stickers with uplifting messages, a yoga mat with various moves depicted. I appreciated it for a short nap one day, and some guided pondering exercises.

Things to do:

Listen to Renee Fleming in Casta Diva (Bellini) to learn how to shape Chopin.

Catherine Price Ted Talk about “fun”.

Look at Bradley Swish’s foot tambourine.

Teaching scales—just remember 3478 for majors.

Improvise to favorite cake and favorite frosting rhythms.

Learn to count aloud while playing!

Sight-reading—keep track of QUANTITY of pages. Keep track of QUALITY of sight-reading with a point system. Reward winners of each category.

Listen to Scherzo Waltz by Chabrier.

Questions:

Where do you draw the line between improvisation and composition?

Noteflight—consider premium level at some point?

Why do publishers want music in the public domain? I imagine cost.