Puget Sounds Piano School offers comprehensive individual and group piano lessons in historic downtown Issaquah.
We are dedicated to coaching pianists of all ages and levels to enjoy playing as much as we do.
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Doctorate of Musical Arts, University of Miami.
Master of Piano Performance, Cleveland Institute of Music.
Bachelor of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music.
Born in China, pianist Yuan Zhou began her piano studies at the age of five. She earned her Doctoral of Musical Arts degree from the University of Miami with a full scholarship and full teaching assistantship. Prior to this, she received her Bachelor of Music degree and Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, along with the honor of The Arthur Loesser Memorial Prize in Piano. As an active performing pianist, collaborator and piano teacher, Yuan has built considerable teaching and performing experience under the guidance of her teachers, Kevin Kenner and Antonio Pompa-Baldi. She taught private piano lessons, group keyboard classes, and collaborated with singers and instrumentalists at the University of Miami as a full-time piano teaching assistant for two years. Before this, she started to teach private lessons in China during summer breaks since 2015. Other than teaching and solo performing, Yuan holds strong collaborative skills that has been developed through abundant chamber music experience. In 2022, she was a young artist at the Taos School of Music. The following summer in 2023, she participated the fellowship program of the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
As a teacher, Yuan believes that every performer speaks through music with their own unique voice. It is crucial to guide and inspire students to find and bring out their own musicality. Teaching different types of students over the years has allowed her to discover the special aspect of each student, notice their strengths and weakness, adjust her teaching method, and create specific plans for each student to bring out their personality in music-making. Cultivating the student’s ability to practice well independently is one of her ultimate goals. She trains students to utilize the skills and knowledge they have learned in lessons to solve similar musical problems by themselves. Studying the piano with her, students can expect to build a rock-solid technical foundation, widely broaden their repertoire, and improve sight-reading and memorization skills, all while awakening their unique musical voice in piano playing. She believes that the role of a teacher is to plant the love and interest of music in each student’s heart, which will provide endless passion and drive them on their future musical journey.
Ouside of performing and teaching, Yuan enjoys cooking, baking, reading, watching movies, and road trips.
