Hear pianist Pallavi Mahidhara this Saturday, October 24, at 8 p.m. at Saint Martin’s Abbey Church in Lacey.

An Indian-American pianist and Steinway Artist, Mahidhara won Second Prize and the Young Audience Award at the Geneva International Piano Competition. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, she has performed across five continents, including appearances at the Marlboro, Verbier, and Gstaad Menuhin festivals. She was also selected by Sir András Schiff for his Building Bridges concert series.

Abbey Church Events consistently brings fantastic artists to our community, and hearing them on the Abbey’s beautiful Steinway D concert grand is always a treat. This promises to be an inspiring evening for teachers, students, and anyone who loves piano music. Please share the invitation with your students and their families!

Saturday, October 24 · 8 p.m.
Saint Martin’s Abbey Church
5000 Abbey Way SE, Lacey
Admission is free; a freewill donation supports the series.
Doors open at 7 p.m.; seating is generally unreserved.

Abbey Church Events information

Hope to see you there!

First Group Lessons of the school year! Come prepared to perform a piece and listen to your fellow young pianists. There will be theory games and piano trivia!

4-5pm

Imanuel Lutheran

Dr. Moore (one of my old professors at the University of Redlands!) will present on the Dalcroze-Eurhythmics method.

Dalcroze education offers an experiential way of teaching and learning music through purposeful movement. Playful yet rigorous in approach, it provides a process for awakening, developing, and refining innate musicality through:

1. Eurhythmics provides training in structural elements (beat, rhythm, meter, texture, phrase, and form) and aesthetic elements (dynamics, nuance, articulation, and affect). As students gain control of their bodies, they become freer to express themselves creatively in both movement and music.

2. Solfège trains the eyes, ears, and voice, enabling a student to listen to music and transcribe it onto paper, and to look at sheet music and hear it internally without the use of an instrument.

3. Improvisation enables students to create music instrumentally or vocally, usually beginning with movement or vocalization to facilitate the creative process. Bodily gestures relate to gestures used at the instrument, clarifying connections between movement and music.

Some interesting activities involved movement to music, bouncing balls, passing pumpkins in rhythm, pulling and pushing “ropes”, clapping, high-fiving someone near you on the downbeats, moving one’s body to each chord in a scale, etc.

Quotes from Emile Jaques Dalcroze: “I often suffered from the fact that the teachers weren’t seeking the spiritual, nervous, or emotional states of their students.”

“I had the idea of interpreting each beat with a gesture.”

Seek to “establish a sort of collaboration between the student’s interpretation and the composer’s which would enliven the performance with a more throbbing current of life.” - Prosnitz

Dalcroze’s vision: “creating an organic life; to harmonize, to create through rhythm, a moral and aesthetic architecture identical to that of your buildings; to elevate music to the heights of a social institution and prepare and new epoch.” Bechtold.

Taubman Workshop for teachers and pianists @ the WCPA Black Box Theatre.

The Taubman Approach is a comprehensive piano pedagogy developed by Dorothy Taubman in the mid-to-late 20th century. It focuses on coordinate, natural body movements and correct skeletal alignment to achieve virtuosity and eliminate playing-related pain and repetitive strain injuries

Washington Center for Performing Arts

Start the fall with a piano recital, because Chloe is back! After graduating from our studio in 2025, she is now at the University of Washington School of Music, pursuing a Bachelors in Music, Piano Performance. She will present a short recital (45 min) of her past year. Works by Bach, Liszt, Beethoven, Chopin, along with a couple duets with me. Everyone is welcome!

Welcome to the 2026-2027 school year!

Spring Recital

Sunday, June 7 @ 2pm - a celebration of a great piano year!

Virtuoso International Festival

Formerly the Virtuoso Festival, to celebrate the works of the romantic, impressionistic, and contemporary musical eras, the VAFI competition opens its doors to pianists and instrumentalists of the world. Recently revised and expanded, this inclusive educational festival aims to inspire youth and adult musicians to create and share their artistry from anywhere in the world – even from his or her living room through pre-recorded YouTube video links.

The SIPF provides within its friendly and accessible format an outlet to express one’s inner voice through the performance of 19th century and later masterworks.

Those familiar with last year’s festival will note no significant changes to 2025 Virtuoso Artists Festival.

Place: St. Martins University, Fine Arts Building

Bring your music! Bring yourself, dressed neatly, nails trimmed, ready to play!

Schedule:

11:30    Phoebe (HS Diploma!)
1:00        Claire
1:20        LUNCH
2:20    Landon
2:50    Shaylan
3:10            Rye
3:30    BREAK
3:45    Grant
4:15        Alex

Group Performance Class 6 - Final class of the year. Perform your Guild repertoire for everyone!

The MLP (Music Literacy Program) is an annual exam to test theory knowledge. Top scores are posted in the WSMTA State website. A fee is associated with this event.

The Pop/Jazz/Duet Recital features students performing favorite tunes. Free to the public.

Location and Time: TBA

Group Performance Class 5 - Tech Olympics! Be ready to play your technical phases for the GOLD! SILVER! and BRONZE!

This recital will be featuring local music teachers. Come watch your teacher on the hot seat!

Location: TBA

Date/Time: Sunday afternoon, March 29, 2026

Place: Westminster Presbyterian, Boulevard Rd

Students from the MAP Program will be selected by our Visiting Artists to take part in the OMTA MAP Recognition Recitals.

Date: Sunday afternoon, March 15, 2026. 1:30 and 2:45 recital times

Location: Westminster Presbyterian

Group Performance Class 4: Tuesday, March 10 @ 4pm!

Come ready to perform your 2 MAP pieces one more time for your fellow young pianists. You’ll also have a chance to “Be the Visiting Artist”!

No private lessons this week, due to Group Lessons and MAP.

OMTA is pleased to feature local students performing works by Baroque Composers (c. 1600-1750). Free and open to the public.

Location: Westminster Presbyterian Church

Times: 9:30am, 10:45am, 12 noon - our studio will be at the 10:45 recital!

OCO Concert featuring the OMTA Concerto Winners (Phoebe and Moskowski!)

Date: Sunday, Feb. 22 @ 2:30pm

Place: Capitol High School Performing Arts Center

Tickets and info can be found here: https://www.olympiachamberorchestra.org

Chopin NW Competition:
Saturday, February 14, 2026, 9 AM–6 PM. (You must be available all day. No requests for specific times.)
Mercer Island Presbyterian Church
3605 84th Ave. SE
Mercer Island, WA 98040

Group Performance Class - first class of 2026! Our secret “Piano Pals” will finally be revealed. Get ready for the annual composition performances!

Happy New Year 2026! Lessons resume 1/12/26

An annual community event put on by the OMTA, this is a delightful and casual

opportunity to share your festive holiday, jazz, and classical pieces with others! Feel free to dress in Christmas-themed accessories to get in the spirit of the season!

Time: 3:30-4:45.

About the event
Each December Pianova Piano Service brings an acoustic piano to a public location and local piano teachers have their students perform holiday music for the public!  It's a great way to promote piano playing to the community and it gives students a lower-stress venue to practice playing in front of others.  

Donations
We  will have a donation box for those who want to support our organization. Additionally, Barnes & Noble will donate a percentage of sales during our event to Olympia Music Teachers.  Please encourage everyone you know to come shop during our event - it really helps us out!