Matthew Myers, Paige Stafford and Sandy Volpe, students of area piano teacher Andrew Schmidt, each recently received the Five-Year National Award from the National Guild of Piano Teachers.
The award signifies that for each of the past five years, the three students have each performed a demanding 10-piece memorized program of piano compositions for a guild-appointed judge and received a passing grade on repertoire, scales, cadences and arpeggios. Their pictures will appear in the Winter 2013 issue of the magazine Piano Guild Notes.
Myers is an eighth-grader at Jefferson Middle School in Jamestown and is the son of Scott and Erika Myers. His other activities include soccer and orchestra.
Article Photos
From left are Andrew Schmidt, Matthew Myers, Paige Stafford and Sandy Volpe.
Stafford is a freshman at Jamestown High School. The daughter of Thomas and Rebecca Stafford, her other activities include soccer and band.
Volpe is a teacher at Fletcher Elementary School in Jamestown. He lives in Jamestown with his wife Shannon and their two children. His other activities include golf and weight-lifting.
The National Guild of Piano Teachers was founded in 1929 and now holds auditions for more than 100,000 piano students annually at more than 700 guild centers nationwide. At each center, students perform for a guild-appointed judge who evaluates their performance. Schmidt's students perform annually at the guild center located at State University at Fredonia School of Music.