Pianist, Elizabeth Gutierrez, Founder and CEO of pianoteacheracademy.com and pianopassport. com has enjoyed a diverse career as a performer, pedagogue, teacher, composer, editor, and educational consultant. She held professorships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and The University of Texas at San Antonio and also served as a piano editor for major music publishers, such as The FJH Music Company, Carl Fischer, and Theodore Presser. She was also an editor and national clinician for Faber Piano Adventures for many years giving numerous workshops and masterclasses worldwide.
Elizabeth devotes herself to serving independent teachers with targeted online tutorials, self-study courses, guest webinars, and virtual conferences at Piano Teacher Academy. The new companion website, pianopassport.com, now offers teachers sheet music and go-to resources to meet specific teaching needs. In developing both online resources, Elizabeth has opened the door to collaborative piano pedagogy where pedagogues and teachers work together to create content through context, connection, and community.
Composer, James Syler, was born in Hyde Park, NY and raised in New York and Florida. He was educated at Northern Illinois University, the University of Miami, and the University of Texas at Austin. Awards include two grants from the American Music Center in New York, the 2016 College Band Directors National Association Young Band Composition Contest for Wu Xing: Concertino for Two Percussion, the 1993 National Band Association Composition Revelli Award and the 1993 Arnald Gabriel Award for The Hound of Heaven. Select choral works are available from Fred Bock Music, Santa Barbara Music, and Music Spoke. From 1998 to 2013 he owned and operated Ballerbach Music, a music publishing company specializing in contemporary music. Since 2001, he has been on the music faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio where he teaches composition, orchestration, and music industry courses. He is married to pianist Elizabeth Gutierrez and resides in San Antonio, Texas.
