January 2027 Program
January 8: Attention, Neurodiversity, and the Transformative Power of Music Teaching
Topic Description
This presentation looks at what young people are carrying into our studios today — fractured attention, neurodiverse ways of processing the world, the pressures of their socioeconomic realities, and a deep need for connection. Drawing on the ideas I explore in my book, Transformational Piano Teaching, I’ll reflect on how music study can become a stabilizing, humanizing force in their lives.
We’ll consider how teachers can help students slow down, pay attention, and encounter beauty in ways that shape who they are becoming — not only as musicians but as people. I will argue that music educators are uniquely positioned to advocate for students’ dignity, belonging, and spiritual connectedness, and that our work has meaningful social impact. At its core, this session is about how music teaching can help students grow into more grounded, compassionate, and fully alive human beings.
Speaker Biography
Dr. Derek Kealii Polischuk is professor of piano and director of piano pedagogy at Michigan State University. A pianist, author, and advocate for inclusive music learning, he founded Celebrating the Spectrum, a festival for advanced pianists on the autism spectrum, and wrote Transformational Piano Teaching, a work centered on belonging, access, and the emotional lives of learners. His teaching and research explore attention, neurodiversity, and the ways music study helps young people cultivate presence, sensitivity, and deeper human connection.
Dr. Derek Kealii Polischuk
January Program
January 9, 2026 I David Abbott - Tips to achieve more efficient results in piano practice in half t
Topic Description
In this presentation Dr Abbott will introduce shortcuts to solving musical and technical problems in piano repertoire: A discussion on breaking down a work in order to gain a more solid technical and clear musical performance.
Speaker Biography
David Abbott is a versatile pianist equally at home in chamber music or solo performance both on modern instruments as well as historical pianos dating from the late 18 th through the 19 th century. He resided for ten years in Switzerland where he was frequently heard both as soloist and collaborative artist throughout Switzerland and Germany and toured in Australia and Europe as a member of the Swiss Chamber Soloists. His recording with that ensemble on the Swiss Claves label of Schumann’s piano quartet and quintet won the coveted Prix D’or prize for that year’s outstanding chamber music recording.
Dr. Abbott has dedicated a great deal of his career as mentor and teacher, serving on the faculties of the Zürich and Schaffausen Conservatories of Music (Switzerland), and earlier at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2010, he was asked to serve on the faculty of the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University as a sabbatical replacement for Edmund Battersby. He has also directed summer courses in both piano and chamber music in Europe as well as in the United States for over 30 years. In 2003, he founded the Con Brio Music Academy in Blonay
Switzerland where he worked with students across Europe and from the United States in piano and chamber music. Dr. Abbott regularly works as adjudicator, serving on juries for various competitions as well as the state and divisional competitions of the Music Teachers National Association. He frequently appears in recitals in many college campuses as well as music festivals across the country.
In 2011, Dr. Abbott was invited to teach and perform in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and also was presented in recitals with his wife Lia Jensen-Abbott in France and Switzerland. In February of 2012, David appeared in his recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in New York City. He was awarded a Bronze medal and two special prizes at the 1980 International Music Competition in Geneva. A graduate of the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music, Dr. Abbott remains active in historically informed performance practice as a result of work with renowned forte pianist
Malcolm Bilson. More recently he recorded a two-CD recording set of solo and chamber music by 20 th century composer Dmitri Shostakovitch.. He is presently engaged in preparing a recording comprised of Brahms’ chamber music for four-hands as arranged by the composer. He currently serves as Professor of Piano at Albion College, Albion, MI. USA
Man with hands clasped, looking at the camera.
January Program
January 10, 2025 | Robert Edwards: An overview of the history of Ragtime through present
Topic Description
Ragtime was America's first unique musical style. From its beginnings as frolicsome variations on European dance music and marches, it flowered into its own grand style, and influenced music around the world in important ways. Robert Edwards will explore the beginnings of Ragtime through its flowering in the early 20th century and its influence on other musical genres throughout the century. We'll discuss and hear piano music of Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb, James Scott and other original masters, as well as contemporary, living composers who write in the ragtime style, such as Billy Joel and William Bolcom.
Bio
Robert Edwards, originally from Grand Rapids, studied at The University of North Texas, earning a degree in Piano Pedagogy, followed by a Master of Classical Piano Performance. While in Texas he worked with special needs students, along with teaching private piano lessons, planning and playing for worship services at several Dallas churches, directing church choirs, actively performing chamber music, performing for and adjudicating piano competitions and helping establish The Singapore Slingers, an 18-piece Early Jazz orchestra.
He combines his interest in Ragtime and Traditional Jazz with his fondness for early film by composing and performing scores for silent films, which he’s performed at The Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern Museum of Art and Kimball Museum in Ft. Worth, Tx, the infamous Texas Theatre in Dallas, and aboard The Queen Mary 2.
Robert moved back to West Michigan in 2021, and feels he’s really home again. He teaches piano lessons from his home studio in the Creston neighborhood of GR, is involved with numerous local musical ensembles as solo pianist, vocalist and collaborative musician, and is delighted to meet with and share his love of Ragtime with the GR Piano Teachers' Forum.
January Program
January 13, 2023 – Helen Marlais
Sound, Physical Gesture, and Imagination
Join Dr. Helen Marlais as she explores ways to look at students’ repertoire in three dimensions. She will discuss: phrasing and sound, correct physical gestures, and will discuss many ways to stimulate students’ imaginations so they feel and think about the music. In this way, we can guide our students to play with artistic personality. She will demonstrate the value of teaching touch releases to young students. She will draw this information on sound, physical gesture, and imagination together with step-by-step examples using repertoire for each age group. Attendees will receive a detailed, follow-along handout and a gift packet from The FJH Music Company.
Dr. Helen Marlais’ performance schedule includes concerts and pedagogical sessions throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Her travels abroad have included performing and teaching in India, S. Korea, Taiwan, Italy, England, France, Spain, Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, Estonia, China, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, and Russia. Marlais has recorded on Audite, Gasparo, Stargrass and Centaur record labels. She has had performances broadcast regionally, nationally, and internationally, on radio, television, and the Internet. Her recording with her husband, concert clarinetist Arthur Campbell, Music for Clarinet and Piano, was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards, one of the most prestigious distinctions available to classical musicians today. FonoForum, a leading European classical music magazine, writes: “Seldom has one so clearly observed the bubbling substructure of the piano part of Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces Op. 73 and, thereby, seldom have the Schumann pieces been played so elegantly and delicately.” They continue with: “Campbell’s and Marlais’ playing is always exact, elegant, without excess. The beauty of this genuinely joint playing is so engaging that it seems to lack for nothing.”
Dr. Marlais dedication to pedagogy for the young is sincere and unwavering. She has given over 500 pedagogical presentations and master classes for pre-college students since 2002. One of the joys of her life has been creating materials to support piano teachers as they guide young musicians. The piano series that she has developed and written for The FJH Music Company have become an integral part of piano students’ repertoire across the country and abroad. Excellent external reviews have come from the European Piano Teachers Association (EPTA), Canada, and the USA. The series, Succeeding at the Piano®, and The All-in-One Approach to Succeeding at the Piano®, Succeeding with the Masters®, The Festival Collection®, and In Recital® all have companion recordings. Other series that round out her catalog are: Sight Reading and Rhythm Every Day®, Energize Your Fingers Every Day®, Play Your Scales and Chords Every Day®, The FJH Intervallic Reading Series®. Write, Play, and Hear Your Theory Every Day®, the FJH Adult Piano Curriculum, and In Recital® for the Advancing Pianist. The Contemporary Keyboard Editions® focuses on piano music by contemporary art-music composers. Several of the series above have been translated for, and released in, South Korea, China, and Taiwan.
Recipient of the Distinguished Contribution to a Discipline Award at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dr. Marlais teaches piano and directs the Piano Pedagogy Certificate program for undergraduate piano majors and for professional piano teachers. Dr. Marlais teaches applied piano lessons to a select number of exceptional piano majors who come to GVSU specifically to study with her, and she also teaches collaborative piano and piano literature on a rotating basis. Many of Dr. Marlais’ pre-college through university majors are awarding-winning pianists. She has demonstrated the ability to develop the highest of standards while teaching with a joy-filled approach. She received her DM in piano performance and pedagogy from Northwestern University and her MFA in piano performance from Carnegie Mellon University. Visit HelenMarlais.com
YouTube: Piano Lessons Helen Marlais
Facebook: Succeeding at the Piano Method