Speakers & Sessions

Week #2 - Technology

July 13, 2026

Diana Dumlavwalla & Melody Morrison

Canadian pianist Diana Dumlavwalla is Associate Professor of Piano Pedagogy at Florida State University. Diana holds performance degrees from the University of Toronto (D.M.A.), the Royal College of Music in London (M.M.), Wilfridty of Windsor, and Wilfrid Laurier University. She serves as a senior examiner for the Royal Conservatory, is a regular juror for festivals and competitions, and completed a six‑year leadership term with the Florida State Music Teachers Association, including service as President.As a soloist and chamber musician, Diana has performed across three continents, appearing in major venues throughout Europe, Australia, the United Kingdom, and North America. Highlights include performances in Scotland, venues across London, and concert halls in Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Australia, as well as numerous series throughout the United States and Canada. Diana is co‑author of Generations Z and Alpha Students at the Piano: A Guide for Piano Teachers (Bloomsbury). Her research appears in leading international journals including the International Journal of Music Education, Psychology of Music, Piano Magazine, Canadian Music Teacher and American Music Teacher. She has contributed book chapters to New Thoughts on Piano Performance and The Applied Studio Model in Higher Education and has led webinars for the Frances Clark Center and the Royal Conservatory. She is a frequent presenter at state, national and international conferences.Her work has been recognized with multiple honors, including two MTNA e‑Journal Article of the Year awards. She was named FSU Advisor of the Year in 2023, received the FSU University Teaching Award for Community Engaged Teaching in 2024, and was awarded the Frances Clark Center’s Outstanding Service Award in 2025. Diana holds performance degrees from the University of Toronto (D.M.A.), the Royal College of Music in London (M.M.), Wilfrid Laurier University (B.M.), and an Associate Diploma from the Royal Conservatory.

Melody Morrison is a pianist and music educator specializing in piano pedagogy and class piano instruction. She currently serves as Lecturer of Music at Middle Georgia State University and will join the faculty of Florida Gulf Coast University as Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Class Piano in Fall 2026.Melody maintains an active career as a teacher, presenter, and collaborator. She has presented workshops and conference sessions on piano pedagogy, technology in music teaching, and innovative strategies for engaging today’s students. Her work often focuses on practical approaches for teaching Generation Z and Generation Alpha learners and supporting teachers in adapting to the evolving landscape of music education. She is particularly interested in developing creative teaching resources and interactive learning experiences that help students build strong musical skills while remaining motivated and engaged.She is coauthor of Generations Z and Alpha Students at the Piano: A Guide for Piano Teachers (Bloomsbury). Her research interests include contemporary piano pedagogy, student motivation, and the integration of digital tools and multimedia resources in the studio and classroom.Melody holds a Ph.D. in Music Education with an emphasis in Piano Pedagogy from Florida State University. She serves as Vice President for Membership for Florida State Music Teachers National Association (FSMTA) and regularly collaborates with colleagues and teachers to develop resources that support effective and engaging piano instruction.

Session #6: “Modern Family”: How to Navigate Teaching in Today’s Society
LIVE 9-10am PST

Music pedagogy has long promoted the student-teacher-parent triangle, a concept promoted by Shinichi Suzuki. In this analogy, the close interaction and communication between all parties ensures the success of the student. This notion came to fruition in the mid-twentieth century when family life was very different. Nowadays, most households have two working parents who, together with their children, juggle many responsibilities and extra-curricular activities. This flurry of action may leave parents overwhelmed and overloaded. Their time may be limited, making them feel unable to assist their children with music practice at home. However, the student-teacher-parent triangle is just as important as ever! It is up to us as teachers to educate and help the parents in our studios find meaningful and effective solutions they can use to help guide their children at home. This presentation will focus on strategies to assist today's parents in helping their children maintain consistency and progress with piano lessons. Strategies will include creating short YouTube videos with practice tips for families, setting auto-text reminders for parents, and using carefully curated and streamlined digital platforms. Other engagement frameworks involve implementing backing tracks, visually attractive progress displays like maps, and gamifying smaller goals that contribute to larger tasks.We’ll also discuss the importance of fostering open communication with parents and students. By ensuring that the student-teacher-parent triangle remains strong, we can help to enliven our students’ musical experiences and offer them the best experience and opportunity for their lifelong engagement with music.

Chee Hyeon Choi

Chee Hyeon Choi is a Korean American pianist and educator who serves as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. An active clinician and presenter, Dr. Choi is frequently invited to give lecture‑recitals and presentations on piano pedagogy at national and international conferences, including the College Music Society, Music Teachers National Association, National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, Association for Technology in Music Instruction, Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations, the Gimhae International Music Symposium, Festival Junger Künstler Bayreuth, and numerous university piano pedagogy programs. Most recently, she was invited to serve as the keynote speaker for the 2026 Korean Piano Pedagogy Symposium. As a performer, Dr. Choi has appeared in both solo and collaborative settings at distinguished venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. She has also been featured as a soloist with the LaGrange Chamber Orchestra, the University of Louisiana Symphony Orchestra, and the Bradley Symphony Orchestra. In addition, she has served as principal keyboardist with the Heartland Festival Orchestra, the Champaign‑Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Choi’s teaching experience includes faculty appointments at Bradley University, Millikin University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees. While serving as Vice President and President‑Elect of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association, she was honored with the ISMTA 2020 Teacher of the Year Award. She is the founder and director of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Piano Institute and the UL Summer Piano Camp. Dr. Choi currently chairs the Louisiana Music Teachers Association Collegiate Faculty Forum and the MTNA Louisiana Competitions. She is also the recipient of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Rising Star Award.

Session #7: Navigating AI in Piano Pedagogy : Challenges, Possibilities, and Purpose

The field of piano pedagogy has changed dramatically over the past century. Compared to a time when private lessons were taught exclusively on acoustic pianos, using paper scores and pencils, today’s students have access to a vast array of digital tools. These include high-quality digital scores, platforms for sharing performances with wide audiences, music learning apps for theory study, and recording technologies. These are all available at their fingertips. Teachers also benefit from technology through streamlined processes such as festival registrations, studio recital planning, communication with parents, and promotion of studio events. As technology continues to develop rapidly, piano teachers are faced with an ever-growing number of resources to evaluate and incorporate thoughtfully into their teaching. Our mutual goals remain unchanged to provide students with the highest quality musical experience and lasting enjoyment in learning the piano. We would agree that we do not encourage students to rely on artificial intelligence (AI) for their individual piano practices. AI cannot replace the role of the teacher. AI cannot internalize musical growth, nor can it replicate the learning, discipline, and skill development that come from hours of deliberate practice. Although AI continues to develop and remains largely in an exploratory stage, we know it cannot fulfill the deeply human aspects of piano pedagogy. Piano teaching is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating humanism, psychology, neuroscience, kinesiology, technology, and much more. Because of this, AI may feel like a distant or even incompatible topic to piano teachers. Nevertheless, it is a relevant concern, as our students are growing up immersed in this technological era. We have a responsibility to help them understand why what we do as teachers remains meaningful and essential. Learning to play the piano requires time, physical engagement, and sustained efforts. These are qualities that stand in contrast to the instant answers and solutions AI can provide. While AI may appear to conflict with the values we uphold in music education, ignoring its presence could risk making our teaching less engaging or outdated. Instead, by understanding the functions and possibilities of AI, we can adopt select tools wisely to enhance efficiency, communication, and relevance for our students. This presentation will introduce several AI tools and features that can be selectively integrated into studio teaching as supplementary resources. Physical practice and individualized instruction remain central to piano pedagogy; AI is intended only to support learning, not replace it. By understanding what AI can and cannot do, we can better educate our students about the enduring value of effort, discipline, and musical artistry in this evolving digital age.

Dina Pollock

My name is Dina Pollock, and I am a piano teacher in Abbotsford BC. I am a person that is always willing to learn something new, which has led to a few positions. I am the editor of the Canadian Music Teacher magazine for CFMTA/FCAPM, Progressions magazine for BCRMTA and Take Note magazine for MRMTA. I also manage a few websites.I had a knack for technology and when Covid shut everything down, I found myself in a new environment and researched how tech could help me teach my students online. I embraced this new way to teaching and worked on making the transition as easy as I can for my students and myself. Music books were a bit of an issue, sharing what students had to work on, marking in fingering, expression, all of this became easier when I started to use digital music that I could easily share on screen. Digital music became my norm in my studio. Through experimenting with options to catalog and view my digital music, I now love to share what I have learnt with other teachers that are curious about digital scores.

Session #8: Digital Music

We all know the feeling of going into a music store and looking at new music. The feel and the smell of a new book. Then buying the book and taking it home and being the first person to crack open the pages, pressing it flat and trying every song. To a musician there was nothing better, except maybe getting a new instrument, but that is a session for another day, today is about digital music.Life changed in 2020 and we all had to come up with new ways to work with our students and one was looking at digital music. For some musicians it was that one step too far from tradition and hard to accept. For some musicians they explored the possibilities that digital music offered.In this session I would like to show you the pros and cons of digital music and how to make the digital files work for you.Things that will be covered

How digital music is sold (books and sheet music)
Single copy license and studio license
Catalog and filing system
Ideas to make it work for you and your students.

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