Mary Ann Ba.

I began playing piano by ear at the age of 3 1/2, listening to The Beatles, Broadway musicals, and other popular songs of the 60's, playing what I heard. By the time I was 15 and started taking piano lessons, my ear was so well trained that my teacher started me with "Fur Elise" by Beethoven, which I had begun teaching myself from hearing it on a movie soundtrack. I had been playing flute for 7 years at that time, and knew the basics of reading music, but had never played written piano music before. My piano instructor graciously allowed me to tackle a piece by one of the Masters right out of the starting gate! After 2 years of Classical lessons, I enrolled as a Music Education major at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where I took jazz piano, voice, ear training, arranging, theory classes, and pop songwriting classes, along with playing piano and singing in many varied ensembles. Through the years following my education at Berklee, I have played in a number of bands, cut a CD which got quite a bit of Northeast regional airplay, taught and continue to teach general music in an elementary school, as well as teaching piano privately, which is what I love most to do.