Peter Jutras is an Associate Professor of Piano and the Piano Pedagogy and Class Piano Specialist at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Clavier Companion magazine, a leading national piano pedagogy publication. Jutras served as Editor-in-Chief of Keyboard Companion from 2007-2008. In the fall of 2008, Keyboard Companion merged with Clavier to form Clavier Companion, and he has continued as Editor-in-Chief of this publication, which combines the legacies of two significant piano journals. Jutras has published articles and research in The Journal of Research in Music Education, The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, American Music Teacher, Clavier Companion, Keyboard Companion, and Georgia Music News. He is a frequent presenter at international, national, state, and local conferences, including the ISME World Conference, the National Conferences of CMS, MENC, and MTNA, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, GP3 the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum, and multiple state and local events. He has conducted extensive research on adult music study, specifically on the benefits of adult piano study and the benefits of participation in New Horizons Bands. A Nationally Certified Teacher of Music, Jutras holds the B.M. degree in music education from the Eastman School of Music, the M.M. degree in piano performance and pedagogy from Southern Methodist University, and the Ph.D. in music education with an emphasis in piano pedagogy from the University of North Texas. Prior to his UGA appointment, he was visiting lecturer at Southern Methodist University and taught at Richland Community College and at the Meadows School of the Arts Community Education Division of SMU. Jutras maintained a successful private teaching studio for 12 years in Dallas, TX.

Dr. Linda Apple Monson, pianist and International Steinway Artist, is a Professor of Music at George Mason University. She currently serves as Associate Director for Academic Affairs for Mason's School of Music as well as Director of Keyboard Studies. In addition, she is the Director of Music at Springfield United Methodist Church. Dr. Monson is the honored recipient of the George Mason University 2009 Teaching Excellence Award "for exemplary dedication to student learning and commitment to educational excellence." She also has been nominated for the prestigious Outstanding Faculty Award sponsored by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV). She has been selected for the Fulbright Senior Specialist Roster, in collaboration with the U.S. State Department and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. Dr. Monson is the President of the College Music Society Mid-Atlantic Region, whose boundaries encompass Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. She also serves as President of George Mason University's chapter of Phi Beta Delta, honor society for international scholars. She has been elected as a Faculty Senator for the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University. An active juror in piano competitions and festivals, Dr. Monson recently served as a juror for the Washington International Piano Competition. An artist-teacher in great demand, Dr. Monson has given piano master classes and recitals in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central America. Her students have been the winners of numerous competitions.

Dr. Monson is an active national and international concert artist and master class clinician. Her appearances within the past few years have included concerts and lecture-recitals in China, Croatia, Germany, England, Spain, Thailand, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico as well as featured lecture-recitals at College Music Society National Conferences in Miami, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon, Salt Lake City, Utah, and San Antonio, Texas. She has also presented lecture-recitals at numerous American universities and colleges, including University of California—Berkeley, Westminster Choir College, Bowling Green University, University of Miami (FL), Gettysburg College, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Gardner-Webb University, University of Maryland, and Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music.

Dr. Monson recently presented solo piano recitals and piano master classes at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge; University of Alabama in Huntsville; Davidson College in Charlotte, North Carolina; Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, and the College of Southern Maryland. Dr. Monson performs frequently at George Mason University as piano soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician. An advocate of new music, she has presented solo piano world premieres (composed 2009-2010) by Mason faculty composers Mark Camphouse, Glenn Smith, and Jesse Guessford. In addition, she has recently premiered solo piano works by American composers Daniel Perttu and Don Bowyer. Dr. Monson has performed as piano concerto soloist with the George Mason University Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Anthony Maiello, and she also performed with Richard Stoltzman and the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Jim Carroll at GMU. Dr. Monson served as a panelist and concert commentator for the Virginia Chamber Orchestra satellite broadcasts, Music of the Romantic Era and Music by Modern Masters, which were broadcast to all community colleges in the U.S. She also served as collaborative pianist for the International Clarinet Festival and Competition at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Monson was an invited concert artist and piano master class clinician for Nanjing Normal University, China in July of 2010. In addition, she was a featured solo performer and lecturer for the 2009 International Conference of the College Music Society in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Additional recent performances include a lecture-recital at the Oxford Round Table in England and performances for the College Music Society International Conferences in Bangkok, Thailand; Madrid, Spain; and San Jose, Costa Rica. She presented a lecture-recital for the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities and was the sole American artist-scholar to present a lecture-recital for the Alban Berg Symposium/Festival (2006) in Hannover, Germany.

Professor Monson earned three degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University: the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance, the Master of Music degree in Piano, and the Bachelor of Music Education degree with a double-major in piano and bassoon. She also received a Diploma in Piano from Musica en Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She has previously served on the music faculties of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore School for the Arts, and Northern Virginia Community College.

Dr. Joanne Haroutounian serves on the George Mason University piano faculty, and oversees and the university's piano pedagogy program. Active internationally as a consultant in the areas of piano pedagogy, music, artistic thinking, creativity, and gifted/arts, Dr. Haroutounian recently was plenary speaker at the Pacific Asian Conference on Giftedness in Singapore and the International Symposium on Gifted Arts in Seoul Korea, speaking on musical talent identification and gifted/arts education for all students.

She is well known for editing and writing more than twenty teaching publications offered through Kjos Music Co., Explorations in Music, a comprehensive curriculum in theory, ear training, analysis, and creative composition. Her publication, Kindling the Spark: Recognizing and Developing Musical Talent, offered through Oxford University Press, provides information regarding perspectives of musical talent for teachers, parents, and pedagogy or music education students in college. Her pedagogy text, Fourth Finger on Bb: Effective Strategies for Teaching Piano is currently in development, due for release the summer of 2011. This will be followed by a set of exercise books on touches – A Palette of Touches, both offered through Kjos.

Dr. Haroutounian's specialized interest in working with talented music students grew into PhD research at the University of Virginia that led to the development of the MusicLink program, which provides long-term private instruction to promising students in financial need. She is currently the Executive Director of the MusicLink Foundation, a non-profit organization that has reached over 4,000 students in forty states, providing 275,000 hours of instruction, equivalent to almost $6.7 million in scholarship donation provided by volunteer MusicLink teachers. More information on this organization can be found on www.musiclinkfoundation.org.

Dr. Anna Balakerskaia has shared her mastery of the piano around the world, from the great concert halls of her native Russia to the great halls of Europe and the Americas. Her versatility has made her much in demand as soloist, collaborator and chamber musician. In addition to her active performance schedule, she has nurtured several generations of extraordinary musicians as teacher, collaborator and coach.

Along with her high-profile career as a soloist, since her conservatory days in St. Petersburg Dr. Balakerskaia has enjoyed a singular ability for working with string players, collaborating with many of the world's greatest violinists and cellists, including Leonid Kogan, Kirill Kondrashian, Viktor Tretyakov, and Daniel Shafran, among others. She has performed with the laureates at all of the great competitions in Europe, from the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Belgium to the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where she was three times awarded the Best Accompaniment Diploma.

Her concert tours have taken her to Europe and North and South America, having performed in some of the great halls of the world such as Carnegie Hall, Salle Gaveau of Paris, The Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Teatro Colon in Buenos-Aires, Palais des Arts in Montreal, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Corcoran Gallery, National Gallery of Arts, and Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Dr. Balakerskaia is a founding member of the "Ensemble da Camera" a trio of musicians based in Washington, DC, renowned across the country for their electrifying synergy, technical expertise and rich, evocative sound. The Ensemble has produced a number of notable recordings. As a result of her expertise with a wide variety of piano and chamber repertoire, Dr. Balakersakaia is frequently invited to collaborate with local and international artists for special performances, as well as recordings.

Dr. Balakersakaia is a sought-after piano teacher whose students have won many competitions in the United States and Europe. Around the world her master classes are enjoyed by students and teachers alike. She is Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at George Mason University. She also serves on the faculties of international music festivals in Italy, Germany, Russia and the Netherlands, where she teaches and performs.

Dr. Balakerskaia received her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance, Pedagogy and Chamber Music from St. Petersburg State Conservatory, where she studied piano with Nadejda Golubovskaia, and chamber music with internationally renowned musician Tamara Fidler. Before moving to the United States, she served on the faculties of both the Moscow Conservatory and the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

Dr. John Paul Healey has served on the piano faculty of George Mason University's School of Music since 2004. Since then he has performed with students, faculty members and as a soloist in most of the performance venues on campus. He has been included as an annual faculty presenter in GMU's Piano Pedagogy Seminars since 2009.

Dr. Healey has earned piano performance degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Texas Christian University and Truman State University in Missouri, each time receiving full scholarship awards. Further studies in performance brought him to the Luzern Konservatorium's Master Classes in Chamber Music (Switzerland) and the Internationaler Kammermusikkurs at Schloss Weinberg (Kefermarkt, Upper Austria). He has performed solo, concerto, chamber and orchestral concerts in America and Europe, including performances of the Holocaust composer Viktor Ullmann's piano music in German and Austrian synagogues. Locally, he has been heard in such venues as the Cosmos Club, the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), the Lyceum and the George Washington Masonic Memorial (Alexandria, Va.), Harmony Hall (Fort Washington, Md.) the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, and McNeir Recital Hall, on the campus of Georgetown University. A recording of his performance there with the Novella Chamber Players in November 2010 was recently featured on WETA radio's Front Row Washington series.

He has been a visiting professor of piano at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a faculty member of the Middlebury College German for Singers summer program (Middlebury, Vt.). He has also been a featured performer and a master class clinician at Virginia Music Teacher's Association state conventions. An enthusiastic chamber musician, he collaborates regularly with members of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and the Air Force Band in chamber recitals. He has been involved with the Levine School of Music Strings/Strings Plus summer programs since 2004, either as an accompanist, faculty member, or artist-in-residence. He arrived as an independent music teacher in Northern Virginia in 1997, and since then has often served as an adjudicator for various local solo and concerto competitions. Dr. Healey is a past president (2005-7) of the Northern Virginia Music Teachers' Association.

He lives in Alexandria, Va. with his wife, Carolyn and two sons.

Dr. Kelly Ker-Hackleman earned her degrees in piano performance at the Cincinnati Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and the University of Memphis. She is currently full-time associate music professor at George Mason University, where she has taught since the fall of 2002. She has also served on the faculties of Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Frederick Community College in Maryland, as well as the University of Memphis and Rhodes College in Tennessee. As an orchestral pianist, she has played keyboard for the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Washington Concert Ballet, the Washington Choral Society, Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra and the Fairfax Symphony.

She is currently principal pianist with the Alexandria Symphony and held the same position with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra for 6 years. She is pianist for the Washington Symphonic Brass, and has recorded two CDs with them –Voices of Brass - which includes Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony - and The Edge, which includes Copland's Appalachian Spring. She also wrote the liner notes for that CD. Kelly has recorded two CDs with her husband, Martin Hackleman, which are presently in pre-production.

An accomplished chamber musician and accompanist, Dr. Hackleman was a founding member of the Peabody Trio of Memphis. She has performed frequently in chamber music performances in the Washington, D.C. area, including the Millennium Stage Series at the Kennedy Center, Mount Vernon, and the Lyceum in Alexandria, with colleagues from GMU and the National Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Hackleman has won or placed in numerous solo piano competitions, notably the National Masters Piano Competition and second prize in the International Beethoven Sonata Competition.

She holds a Masters of Music degree in performance with "Distinction in Performance" from the New England Conservatory and a doctorate in piano performance from the University of Memphis, where her dissertation was on the use of piano in orchestral music. Kelly is a member of the American Guild of Organists, and holds the position of organist at Kirkwood Presbyterian Church in Springfield, VA, where she is also Artistic Director of Concerts from Kirkwood. Her composition, "In This House," a choral anthem, was premiered by the Kirkwood Presbyterian Church Choir in 2005 upon the dedication of their newly renovated sanctuary. An avid ambassador for music, Kelly has been asked to present lectures for the Faculty Arts Board of George Mason University, the Friends of Music for George Mason University, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and the Springfield Music Club. She serves as resident lecturer for the McLean Orchestra's "Classical Insights with Kelly: A Pre-concert Lecture Series."

Developing a fondness for computers since writing her doctoral dissertation on one in 1993, Kelly has combined what she has learned in technology workshops with self-training to be able to use extensive technology in both the classroom and the studio. She is presently teaching "Music in Computer Technology" at GMU, and is developing the first offering by the GMU School of Music of an online music course that will debut in Fall of 2012.