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Did you know playing the piano takes away the pressures of daily life and can improve your mental health? So says research published by the National Institute of Health.
A remote piano program for essential workers will begin this weekend, offered by a Greenwich-based nonprofit organization run by Fairfield County piano teacher Felicia Feng Zhang.
Zhang is well known in the region as a piano educator and music advisor. She teaches piano through her school All Talent Academy, which has studios in Greenwich, Stamford and Southbury. Zheng is also the president and advisor of the Piano Village Foundation (PFV) founded in 2017 to provide a free piano program.
Starting on Saturday, the class for essential workers (register here by Tuesday, July 14) will be taught by some of the accomplished students at Zhang's piano school.
Zhang said she is offering the program to allow "more people to benefit from all aspects of music learning. We need more of this kind of help in action in our community, especially during this hard time everyone is facing."
The foundation is dedicated to providing music education to anyone interested. She believes it's been "difficult' to have a creative outlet in the health crisis and recognizes the financial difficulty particularly now for some people who might want to have music education but cannot pay for it.
This PFV free program (excluding a fee for learning materials) is for anyone who either wants to learn piano for fun or serious study. The remote lessons will enable both pursuits, according to Zhang.
The lessons are offered in 30-minute segments for a month beginning on Saturday, July 18. The final session will be a recital.
Zhang, who has taught piano for 30 years in China and the United States. is an award-winning dual National Certified Piano Teacher and American College of Musicians from the National Music Teacher Association. Teachers include some of her accomplished high school and college piano students and volunteers: Clara Tu, Eva Zhang, Serena Arnold and Alexander Tu.
"These youth leaders have achieved various awards from piano performance, having performed several times in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and other venues," Zhang noted.
Register online here. Send inquiries to pianovillage@yahoo.com
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