Ann Shurtz

Ann Shurtz is a talented and highly-trained pianist who currently maintains an active piano studio of 50 to 60 students. She loves teaching children, and also enjoys training other piano teachers. She has been the Artistic Director of the Central Pennsylvania Suzuki Association for many years, and many of her students have performed various piano concertos and other large works with a chamber orchestra that she directs. Additionally, she is a church musician and choir director.

Piano Teacher Mentor

Ann first created the Preparatory Book in 2007 in order to help the very youngest beginners start learning to play the piano, with simplified and deconstructed songs and some additional pieces to aid in teaching. Ann has used this method book for her own large studio, and has trained many teachers in her methods, which use the listening training of the Suzuki method but also teach the students to read music. After the COVID epidemic of 2020 and learning more about teaching online, Ann wanted to make her methods and teacher training more widely available, so she started building the Piano Teacher Mentor course and accompanying materials. Her method book has been expanded and improved, and audio and video recordings are now available to make the listening component easy and convenient.

Happy Piano Kids

Ann has learned over the years that students learn more quickly when they have appropriate help and support from their parents. Many parents do not play piano or other instruments, and have not seen the process of learning to play the piano, especially with this method of learning. Ann has created the Happy Piano Kids Brilliant Beginnings course in order to teach parents how to better learn with and support their children. Videos of each song are available in order to demonstrate fingering, technique, and articulation, for extra review between piano lessons.