Speakers & Sessions

Week #3 - Studio Buiness & Growth

July 20, 2026

Anne Marie McIntyre

Anne Marie McIntyre is a seasoned voice and piano educator, certified life and business coach, and passionate advocate for the wellbeing of music teachers and creative professionals. A graduate of Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Anne Marie has built a distinguished career spanning over 25 years as a performer, pedagogue, and music director. Her recital work has taken her across Canada and the United States, including appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She has continued her own artistic development through studies at the prestigious Golandsky Institute in New Jersey and the Juilliard School in New York. Her students have achieved Gold Medal standings in Royal Conservatory of Music examinations, top honors at local, provincial, national and international competitions, and awards at the National Music Festival in Canada and the American Protégé Competition in the United States. Many have gone on to successful performing careers in music theatre and opera across North America and Europe. Anne Marie is an RCM Certified Teacher with an Advanced Specialist Designation in Piano, and was honored with the Teacher of Distinction Award from the Royal Conservatory of Music in November 2025. In addition to her teaching, Anne Marie is a graduate of the Coaching Evolved Certification Program and now works with music teachers and creative professionals navigating burnout, boundaries, business growth and the deeper mindset work that transforms not just their studios — but their lives. Her coaching practice bridges practical strategy with inner alignment, helping music educators rediscover their worth, their joy and their purpose. Anne Marie believes that when music teachers do the inner work — the embodied, transformational work of coming home to themselves — everything changes. Their studios. Their relationships. Their joy. Their lives.

Session #9: From Burnout to Sustainable Joy: Embodied Studio Business Transformation for Music Teachers
LIVE 9-10am PST

Music teachers across the globe are experiencing unprecedented burnout, feeling disconnected from their initial passion for teaching while struggling to build sustainable, fulfilling studio businesses. Many find themselves caught in cycles of overwhelm, making business decisions from fear rather than wisdom, and slowly losing the joy that drew them to music education in the first place.This transformational 60-minute workshop offers a revolutionary approach to studio business development by integrating embodiment-based coaching with practical business strategy. Unlike traditional business workshops that focus solely on external tactics, this experience creates sustainable change from the inside out, helping teachers reconnect with their authentic teaching essence while building thriving, values-aligned studios.Workshop Experience:Participants begin with a gentle guided somatic reset exercise designed to shift from overwhelm into calm presence—the foundation for clear decision-making. From this grounded state, teachers will explore a guided values and essences excavation, reconnecting with their core motivations and unique teaching gifts through embodied awareness practices.The heart of the workshop involves creating an "Energy Map" of their current studio business, using body wisdom to identify where their practices align with their values and where disconnection creates stress. Teachers will learn to recognize the physical sensations of business alignment versus misalignment, developing their internal guidance system for sustainable decision-making.Practical integration follows, as participants translate their insights into concrete business strategies: pricing from worth rather than fear, attracting students who align with their teaching values, creating boundaries that protect their energy, and designing schedules that honor their natural rhythms.The workshop concludes with an embodied commitment practice, where teachers identify one aligned action step and learn a simple daily check-in process to maintain this new way of being in their studios.Unique Value:This approach recognizes that sustainable business success requires inner alignment, not just external strategy. By addressing both the personal exhaustion and business challenges music teachers face, participants leave with renewed passion, clear direction, and practical tools for creating studios that nourish both teacher and students.Teachers will discover how to make business decisions from embodied wisdom rather than reactive overwhelm, transforming their relationship with both their teaching and their livelihood. This workshop doesn't just offer business tips—it offers a pathway back to the joy and fulfillment that makes music teaching sustainable for the long term.Learning Outcomes:

Reconnect with authentic teaching essence and core values
Develop embodied decision-making skills for business choices
Create alignment between personal values and studio practices
Learn practical strategies for sustainable business growth
Build community with like-minded music educators

Barbara Levorson

Biography coming soon...

Session #10: Making a Living as a Music Educator

There are many challenges to become financially self-sufficient as private music educators. We are isolated as self-employed individuals. We need to break into a market and reach interested families. We need to understand how to price our lessons within the local market. We are restricted by the number of hours in the day that are available for teaching. Income diversification is an effective way to expand both our service offerings and to reduce reliance on a single income stream. This strategy generates income from multiple sources, and realizing benefits from active income (e.g. teaching) and passive income (e.g. web sales or rentals). This creates stability to earn more income, withstand market changes, or sustain us through disruptions in our personal lives. Income diversification not only allows us to generate more income, but also spreads financial risk. This presentation looks at many ways we could expand our target market, and how to diversify income streams in order to create a stable and sustaining income.We will examine ideas and strategies to:

Expand your existing customer base
Expand your service offerings to new customers
Creating passive income
Explore performance income
Alternative ideas for income diversification
Understanding the “business” of your business

We will also briefly discuss how your studio policies support your business model and profitability, and considerations for contingencies and for retirement planning.

Brendan Jacklin

Canadian-American pianist Brendan Jacklin is a performer, teacher, lecturer, and new music advocate. A special interest of his involves performing interdisciplinary and multimedia music, performing works with electronics, video, poetry, and dance. Brendan has presented at conferences across Canada and the USA, including topics on recording technology, performance practice, and pedagogy.Brendan is a co-founder of A Seat at the Piano, an initiative to create a more equitably representative body of piano works, as well as Director of Programming for the Nashville Chamber Music Society. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Piano at Fisk University.Brendan completed his D.M.A. at the University of Cincinnati, with cognates in piano pedagogy and multimedia music. He received his M.Mus. from Bowling Green State University, and his B.Mus. at Brandon University with minors in cello performance and history. Previous teachers and mentors include Awadagin Pratt, Michelle Conda, Thomas Rosenkranz, Megumi Masaki, and Leanne Zacaharias.Based in Nashville, TN, when he is not doing any of the above, you can probably find Brendan running, baking, or reading. You can follow his baking or find upcoming concert and project details at www.brendanjacklin.com.

Session #11: The Limitations of Once-A-Week Lessons

Every summer, I am fortunate to teach at a music festival where I am able to work with pianists of all levels, from intermediate to advanced. At this festival, each student is tasked with learning a brand new piece of music over the course of ten days that is performed by memory at the final concert. Students receive a lesson every other day, participate in daily group classes, and are given daily scheduled practice times. Without fail, every single student is able to perform come the end of the festival, accomplishing in a week and a half what could take months during their regular studies. This experience both inspires and frustrates me. The work that the students are able to accomplish is incredible, but it raises the question why they cannot make similar progress during the year. We only see our students once a week during most of the year. What if the ubiquitous once-a-week lesson schedule is not the best for learning, but is a byproduct of modern day schedules and results in a highly fractured and inefficient learning experience for our students?This presentation explores research that demonstrates that many of the issues students face in their education are a result of inefficient teaching structures, highlighting research the suggests that multiple sessions per week results in a much stronger learning. We will also explore ideas such as the forgetting curve, spaced repetition, and efficient feedback that strengthen a student’s learning, ending with new models for educators that can help alleviate the inherent weaknesses of the once-a-week model.

Let us know if you'll be attending!

Full Registration: $80 CAD

Interested in specific workshops? Register by the Week: $25 CAD

Access all recordings, Q & A, and connect with colleagues until August 31, 2026

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