Studio Fellowship winner

American Music Teacher, June-July, 2004

Joanna Grace of Madison, Wisconsin, is the recipient of the MTNA Studio Fellowship Award. The award, in the amount of $3,000, is made possible by the MTNA FOUNDATION FUND.

Grace holds a bachelor of music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and a master of music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Madison, Grace is a full-time teacher offering private piano and horn lessons to students age 4 to adult. She started teaching piano lessons at age 8 to her neighborhood friends shortly after she started taking lessons. Her love of music is contagious to both enthusiastic and reluctant students. She nurtures creativity, including student compositions, and promotes a lifelong love of music.

"Grace exemplifies the type of independent music teacher the Fellowship was created to support," says MTNA Past President Joan M. Reist, NCTM. "She is organized, versatile, creative and demonstrates sincere caring for and wonderful interaction with her students. She displays a genuine passion for making music--and for teaching--and her goals are laudable: to enable her students to practice effectively and to become independent learners."

Grace currently serves as vice president of the Madison Area Piano Teachers Association (MAPTA). She also is the pianist for Meadowbrook Church and frequently accompanies instrumentalists and vocalists for competitions, auditions and recitals. As a result of her interest in efficient practicing, she developed a course for the 2003 UW-Madison Summer Music Clinic titled Practice Strategies. In 2002, she enthused senior citizens at the Senior Summer School with music courses titled "Unforgettable Patterns in Music" and "Like Father Like Son Composers." A composer herself, Grace has written works for solo piano, horn quartet, violin and piano, and other instrumental combinations. During the summer months, she plays co-principal horn and is a featured soloist with the Capitol City Band. Her past teachers include Steven Brinegar, horn; Douglas Hill, horn; and Joanne Haroutounian, piano.

Judges for the MTNA Studio Fellowship Award were Joan M. Reist, NCTM, University of Nebraska-Lincoln emerita, and Rachel Kramer, independent music teacher.