Beth's Piano Studio
3790 Kersdale Place
Grove City, Ohio 43123
614-420-6367
bakloes@gmail.com
Featured Composer for April
Melody Bober
Melody Bober is a modern-day composer with Alfred Publishing Company and is well-known for the many solos and duets she has written, including five duets which will be on the 2025 Pianorama program!
Melody enjoys writing pieces that motivate and challenge students. Some of her best-known books are “Grand Solos for Piano”, “Grand Duets for Piano”. , and “Grand Trios for Piano”. She has also written a number of collections of solos on hymn tunes.
In addition to composing and teaching piano, Melody has also been a church, music director, church pianist and accompanist, and has taught both in the public school and at the university level.
Boogie Train
Jugglers (from Grand Solos Book 3)
Crystal Palace Waltz (from Best of Melody Bober Book 2)
Busy Bumblebee
Featured Composer for March
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was born in Texas, the second of six children. He wrote music in the Contemporary Era. His father played the violin and his mother played the banjo. Joplin played the guitar and bugle as well as the piano. He started playing the piano at the age of 7, taking lessons from a local German music teacher who offered him free lessons. He traveled a lot in the eastern United States before settling in New York City.
Joplin was called the “King of Ragtime”, the form of music which he wrote, and is considered the greatest of all ragtime composers. Ragtime is one of the earliest forms of jazz music and is known by its unusual rhythms in the melody while the bass part played in a steady rhythm.
Joplin wrote about 50 piano rags, two operas, and a few songs, waltzes and marches. He also wrote School of Ragtime, a book which explains how to play ragtime music. Among his compositions was an opera called Treemonisha. His best-known piece is Maple Leaf Rag (named for a nightclub for which he played). He is also known for his ragtime pieces which were used in the movie The Sting”.
The Entertainer
Bethena
Maple Leaf Rag
Solace
Featured Composer for February
Stephen Heller
Stephen Heller is a composer who is known only for his piano works. It is thought that he wrote a few songs, but they have never been found, and two of his works also have a violin part.
Heller was born in Hungary in 1813. He started piano lessons at the age of five, also learning harmony (music theory) at that age. At the age of nine, he went to Vienna to study, and when he was 14, he had his first concert tour.
Later, he became a music tutor which gave him more time to work on composition. He also spent some time in Paris, where he met a number of other well-known composers of the Romantic period, including Robert Schumann, who helped him get his music published.
Although he is known mostly for his “etudes” (short pieces written as exercises), he also wrote a number of other pieces which included variations, sonatas, fantasies, dance movements, and smaller forms such as nocturnes, waltzes, caprices and scherzos.
Heller’s music is said to show a number of nationalistic styles, changing throughout his career, which influenced later composers.
Stephen Heller is a composer who is known only for his piano works. It is thought that he wrote a few songs, but they have never been found, and two of his works also have a violin part.
Heller was born in Hungary in 1813. He started piano lessons at the age of five, also learning harmony (music theory) at that age. At the age of nine, he went to Vienna to study, and when he was 14, he had his first concert tour.
Later, he became a music tutor which gave him more time to work on composition. He also spent some time in Paris, where he met a number of other well-known composers of the Romantic period, including Robert Schumann, who helped him get his music published.
Although he is known mostly for his “etudes” (short pieces written as exercises), he also wrote a number of other pieces which included variations, sonatas, fantasies, dance movements, and smaller forms such as nocturnes, waltzes, caprices and scherzos.
Heller’s music is said to show a number of nationalistic styles, changing throughout his career, which influenced later composers.