Leonard Shure

I was Leonard Shure’s assistant at the New England Conservatory. Mr. Shure had been Arthur Schnabel’s assistant in the 1930s. He had a powerful understanding of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, and taught me how to translate that into an eloquence that was transferable to a wide range of composers. 

John Kirkpatrick

Starting as a junior at Wesleyan University, I traveled each week for three years to New Haven, CT for a six-hour lesson from John Kirkpatrick. I was his only student, and he was my mentor. Kirkpatrick studied with Nadia Boulanger in France during the 1920s where he also knew Stravinsky. He famously premiered Charles Ives’ “Concord” Sonata. He immersed me in Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Fauré, Gottschalk, and other little known American composers and taught me to approach contemporary works with meticulous care and classical composers with a fresh spontaneity.

George Barth

At Wesleyan University I studied with George Barth, who introduced me to concepts of performance practice, the idioms and approaches that give voice to composers from different eras. George currently teaches at Stanford University. He wrote "The Pianist as Orator: Beethoven and the Transformation of Keyboard Style."

Mildred Victor

Mildred Victor was my piano teacher growing up in White Plains, NY. She studied with Arthur Schnabel in New York city as a young girl and was a fabulous pianist. Pianists with physical problems searched her out for her fluent approach to playing. She spent years developing a rigorous and unique system of technique that I teach to my students today. The Juilliard Journal recently published an article about her approach to playing in her 80s.