Piano Teacher Celebrates 25 Years Of Music

By Nancy K. Crevier

Julie Cook’s piano studio is like a cozy living room where the upright piano takes center stage. Located upstairs at 111 Church Hill Road, across from the Sandy Hook Diner, Ms Cook has seen businesses around her come and go, watched the face of Sandy Hook Center evolve, watched students grow from toddlers to teens, and even moved her own studio a few doors down in the course of the years that she has provided piano lessons at Julie’s Piano Workshop. What has not changed is her enthusiasm for instructing students in the art of playing the piano.

September celebrates a quarter century since Ms Cook opened her studio in Sandy Hook in order to share her love of music.

She started piano lessons at her father’s side at the age of 5, continued with lessons all through high school in New Britain, where she grew up, and studied music at the Hartt School of Music, as well. “I loved the piano from the beginning, and I had always wanted to teach,” said Ms Cook.

Marriage and children distracted her from a degree in education, she said, but she indulged her love of instructing by teaching what she knew well — piano — at another studio in Newtown. The decision to open her own piano workshop in 1983 turned out to be a personal journey, said Ms Cook. “I began with two goals in mind: I wanted to teach the music fundamentals, and I wanted to help students feel the joy of music. What I have found is that I learn from my students,” she said.

Students who struggle with lessons help her to find new ways to communicate the lesson, she said, and by doing so, she becomes a better teacher. “Teaching music has had far-reaching effects in my whole life. What I love is the variety in my students and lessons. I never know what challenge the student will present to me,” said Ms Cook. If a student has a bad day at school, for instance, that can roll over into being uncooperative at piano lessons later that day, she said as an example. “That’s an opportunity for me, though. How can I spark them?”

She sparks her piano students by combining an organized, disciplined approach with freedom and creativity. Lessons at the keyboard may be broken up with other music-related activities and games, especially for younger students who may find it difficult to sit at the piano for the entire lesson.

Ms Cook and her staff, Alina Henriques, Irina Virovets, Francine Wheeler, and Meg Thomas, use the traditional note-reading method, with the key emphasis on flexibility, she said. “We focus on each child’s individual needs and we use all different styles of music like classical, jazz, and pop, to appeal to students. Not all students learn in the same way, is what I have learned over the years,” Ms Cook. The teachers all confer with Ms Cook about students’ progress and any concerns, but she does not oversee the lessons. “My teachers are great people. I’ve had so many wonderful teachers over the years,” she added.

Improvisation

One of the more recent approaches that Julie’s Piano Workshop has utilized in teaching private piano lessons is an improvisational approach to music. “This has been very, very successful. I think it’s extremely important for kids to have the experience of creating their own music,” said Ms Cook. Group improvisational workshops provide a place for students to increase their music knowledge or a place for others who just want to learn the basics of music through improvisation. Last summer, Julie’s Piano Workshop ran a five-week workshop for music students on improvisation. At the end of the five weeks, the musicians visited Homesteads Assisted Living Facility and the Matthew Curtiss House where they performed improvisational concerts. “The kids were amazing,” said Ms Cook. “That’s a lot of risk-taking.”

Many of nearly one thousand students who have taken lessons at Julie’s Piano Workshop over the past 25 years have developed an extended relationship with the studio, starting lessons around the age of 6 and continuing all the way through high school. “I think they come back because it’s really fun to be able to play a whole piece of music, and there is the satisfaction of achieving something when they do so,” she said. It is satisfying for her when young people that she has taught at the studio go on to make music a career, or even when she knows that music has become a daily part of their lives.

What has become an increasing challenge the past several years is the number of after-school activities that compete for time, said Ms Cook. “A student will get something out of coming once a week and playing here, but not as much as if they practice at home. Piano lessons aren’t just all about the time spent here, and it is getting harder for kids and parents to find the time they need,” she has observed.

 But not all of the students are youngsters, Ms Cook emphasized.

“We have a number of adult students who are ready and raring to go when they sign up for piano lessons,” she said. “That’s just a delight, and it is wonderful that they are at a stage where they think, ‘I’ve always wanted to play the piano and now it’s my turn.’ They are motivated, and it is no problem getting them to practice.”

Juli Burk made it a goal to learn to play the piano by the time she turned 50. That happened earlier this year, she said, and she is well on her way after two years of lessons with Julie Cook. “I like to say I’m the oldest beginner in Connecticut,” said Ms Burk. “It was a lifelong dream for me to play the piano, so I got a piano, and I have a wonderful instructor in Julie Cook. She’s the perfect teacher. She knows when to push me and when to praise. She’s also an incredible listener when I play,” said Ms Burk. And while she still has a long way to go, Ms Burk said, she now can play pieces that she never dreamed she would master.

“Julie is a great teacher,” agreed another adult student, Carol Diorio, who for the past eight years has been using her lunch hour from work at IBM in Southbury to come to Julie’s Piano Workshop for lessons. “She is inspiring because of her interest in music and her willingness to accommodate my interests in music. It’s not easy for adults to learn a new skill, and what I like about my lessons,” said Ms Diorio, “is that I got into playing ‘real’ music as soon as I could.”

For any student, young or old, who has chosen to learn piano, practice should not become an issue, said Ms Cook. “When it is a source of joy and a channel of self-expression and stress relief, it is not a chore. I don’t want the piano to become another chore for a student, or just another drill they have to get through,” she said.

Opportunities To Perform

Keeping the music just in the studio would be stifling, said Ms Cook, so every student has the chance each year to take part in playing at area nursing homes and assisted living homes, to perform during the Victorian Tea in the Alexandria Room at Edmond Town Hall during the Holiday Festival, and to take part in a yearly recital for friends and family, usually at one of the area churches or the Newtown Meeting House. “These are always optional, because I don’t want to ever force anyone to do something that makes them uncomfortable. But I do try to encourage the students. I love presenting my students and seeing the response they get from the audience. It’s so heartwarming,” said Ms Cook. “I am grateful toward all the students, parents, and teachers I’ve worked with over the years. I truly feel I’ve received more from them than I’ve given.”

Twenty-five years has passed quickly, said the piano instructor. People come, people go, children grow up, and the scenery changes outside the window at Julie’s Piano Workshop. But until life points her in a new direction, Julie Cook will go on helping piano students make music to the ear.

 

Julie’s Piano Workshop 111 Church Hill Road, Sandy Hook, offers private 30-and 45-minute lessons from September to June, with a ten percent discount offered to siblings. Students may start lessons at any time during the year. For more information, call 426-7924.