Amy: I’m Amy Chaplin and you’re listening to episode 195 of The Piano Pantry Podcast.
Around here, every 5 episodes is a casual, get-to-know-you teacher chat. I’m particularly excited about this one, not only because of who my guest is, but also because it’s been a while since we’ve had a one-on-one teacher chat.
The last three chats—episodes 180, 185, and 190—were all group conversations starting with teachers who attended the 2026 MTNA Conference in Chicago, followed by Joy Morin’s Retreat at Piano Manor in June, and finally my Digital Organization Retreat in August.
So, the last one-on-one teacher chat was actually with Joy Morin way back in January in episode 175. I can hardly believe it’s been that long myself!
Without further ado, here’s my chat with Connecticut-based teacher Benjamin Steinhardt.
Amy: Well, Benjamin, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I’ve been wanting to have you on for quite a while, so I’m really looking forward to getting to know you a little bit more. Why don’t you just introduce yourself, and let us know, like, what does your current teaching and professional look like right now in this season?
Benjamin: Hi, Amy. Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m particularly excited to be here because, one, I enjoy chatting with you, but also because we can talk about piano teaching, of course, but also food, which is a big favorite of mine. Yes. So I currently live in Connecticut, and I live about 45 minutes outside of Manhattan. And in terms of teaching, I teach between 50 to 55 students a week, so I have a very large studio.
Benjamin: My youngest student is four, and my oldest one just turned 85. And so I teach, a few days a week at a community music school. I maintain a private studio in Manhattan, and then I also teach some online lessons, which I’ve been doing since COVID.
My students range the entire range. I have complete beginners. I have very advanced pianists, a lot of students who are, who are doing competitions or are, are trying to get into music schools. And then I also have quite a few students, who are special learners, who have special learning needs And then I’ve, I’ve had for a long time kind of a subspecialty.
I do a lot of movement retraining with students, so I either have pianists who are recovering from injuries or, or they’re just simply learning, looking to, to play more comfortably and efficiently. And then I also have a lot of piano teachers in my studio who are just either looking to play better or to teach better.
Amy: Well, that sounds like a really vibrant teaching and professional life. But man, how do you keep up with that schedule? Are you teaching, like, seven days a week?
Benjamin: No, I used to teach seven days a week, and I’ve cut it down to five. But that’s because, amongst other things, I am the program director of a wonderful program called The Well-Balanced Pianist, which I’ve done.
This is my third year doing it, and then I am the co-president of the local MTNA chapter and the treasurer of the state, so all those things keep me very busy as well. And then I perform quite a bit, too. These days I’m really focused on performing with local musicians in Connecticut, so I do a lot of chamber music.
I do a lot of premiering music by local composers, and I get to sometimes play with the local symphonies, which is really fun.
Amy: I assume you probably enjoy the variety, as many of us do, of just having so many different avenues, like both as a musician, as a teacher, and having so many different types of students to work with. Do you have a favorite type of student that you enjoy or age range?
Benjamin: I really don’t. It all depends on the individual. And I do like the variety. I think I would get pretty bored if it weren’t for the variety. Yeah. It’s kind of fun to have, you know, a six-year-old followed by a, you know, an adult beginner, followed by someone who’s working on Rachmaninoff.
Amy: Right. The life of a piano teacher. It is quite a mental switch, though. I mean, like, like I just really sometimes have to think, “Okay, now I’m here in this moment,” and just really, you know, setting yourself in that mindset, you know, going from singing and moving with a four-year-old to, you know, like you said, playing Rachmaninoff. It definitely takes a, a change of, of pace.
Benjamin: When my schedule looks extra insane, I just like to go through each student individually, ’cause if I think of them as a larger group, it’s kind of overwhelming. But I think, “Oh, I’m gonna teach Chris, and then I’m gonna teach Alex.” And I’m like, “Ooh, I really like this st- ” It, it makes it much more manageable somehow mentally.
Amy: The first time we met, I don’t know if you remember or not, it was in Seattle. I think the Seattle conference – is that right? Seattle, Washington.
Benjamin: Was it Baltimore?
Amy: Oh, was it Baltimore?!
Benjamin: It might have been, yeah.
Amy: I forgot about that. Yeah, I remember Seattle, like, having dinner with Joy Moran, and I just remember her saying, “Oh, you know I organized to have lunch with Ben Steinhart,” and I was like, “Who’s that?” And then she’s like, “Well, he’s kind of famous or a well-known teacher,” and it’s one of those things you kind of then feel like, ooh, I get to meet this person, you know? So…
Benjamin: Well, I was excited to meet you, so there you go.
Amy: There you go. And then I think it was the next year I attended one of your sessions on technique in Indianapolis. You had been invited by a group in Indianapolis to come do your Junior Virtuoso session, which was excellent, by the way. Just so many, wonderful visuals on teaching technique, and just a… You’re a great presenter, so if anybody ever wants to have Benjamin, he’s definitely an excellent one
Benjamin: Oh, thank you
Amy: Yeah, I’ll vouch for that. That was the first time I actually met, Irina Gorin. It took me a second to come to me. Had you ever met Irina before, or was that the first time when she was at your workshop?
Benjamin: I had talked to Irina many times online, but I had never met her, and I really appreciated her attending that. ‘Cause we have sometimes very different approaches to things, but it meant a lot to me that she came and that she really, you know, took everything into consideration, and we had that kind of mutual respect for each other. I thought that was great.
Amy: Well, tell us more about this Well-Balanced Pianist. I have kind of heard of it, but I honestly don’t know anything about it. Would you mind just diving into that a little bit?
Benjamin: Oh, absolutely. Okay. So the Well-Balanced Pianist, it’s a program for pianists, obviously, pretty much adults, although occasionally we have some teens, and it was founded by Dr. Teresa Dybvig in 2003, and she was kind of looking to create what her idea of a dream program would be. What makes it special is that it’s all about a holistic approach to piano playing. So we don’t just concentrate in kind of traditional ways on the notes or the technique, but we want to look at kind of the whole person behind the instrument.
So we have six different areas. Let me see if I can list them. We have musicianship, healthy piano technique, whole body movement, performance mindset, pedagogy, and community. Those are the big six. And what we like to do is we like to bring together both piano teachers who tend to specialize in the Taubman approach, as well as body workers.
So we have some wonderful master teachers of Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, and Aston Patterning who are on the faculty. And, importantly, everybody gets individual lessons and in small groups, so we never have large lecture situations. And so you get to attend technique and musicianship clinics.
You get private body work sessions with a body worker, and we have lots of discussions about practicing and performance mindset and teaching. And I think the most important thing is that we bring together a whole swath of pianists. So we have professionals, we have piano teachers, university students, serious amateurs, and the whole point is that everybody gets to kind of work together.
Everybody observes each other’s lessons. We have practice groups and practice partners, so you get to practice together, and then you kind of can learn from each other’s experiences wherever you are on your piano journey.
Amy: So just making sure I understand, is it location based?
Benjamin: It’s a bit of both. We do – every other year, we do a week-long program. We’ve been doing it in Michigan the last several years, where we have people get together for a week, and we kind of go from 9:00 to 6:00 each day. And then we have short programs, sometimes online, and then right now we’re doing, this summer we’re gonna do a teacher training program for everybody who is in our teacher training program.
Amy: Okay, so just a variety of different things that people can sign up for. It’s not like a membership necessarily.
Benjamin: No, not at all.
Amy: So if teachers were interested in engaging with that, is there an email list for the Well Balanced Pianist, or where’s the best way to get connected?
Benjamin: Oh, just go to wellbalancedpianist.com, or you can check us out on Facebook.
Amy: Like everything else, right?
Benjamin: Yes, yes.
Amy: Well, you are also one of the moderators of The Art of Piano Pedagogy, which is the biggest Facebook group, I think. I’m sure it’s probably, like, what, 50,000 now? Where, where’s it standing? Oh,
Benjamin: We’re not that high. We’re, we’re at 26,000 last time
Amy: I was inflating it. That’s me. LOL So I definitely would like to hear what that’s like. I mean, how long has that group been going on, and have you, have you been a part of it since the start? How has everything changed? Like, just so many questions I have.
Benjamin: Well, the group was, was founded by Irina Gorin, in, I think, 2012. Yeah. And then I joined shortly after, 2013 maybe. And Irina only ran it for a couple years. It got kind of overwhelming for her, and at that point, I joined the admin team with Lisa Milne and Miriam Kornberg.
At that time, we were kind of a small admin team. And yeah, and, and then it was just a few thousand members. It has steadily grown to 26,000. I think we peaked at around COVID because so many teachers were like, “What do I do? I have to suddenly teach online and navigate all these crazy kind of public health restrictions and things.”
So I think we were really quite a great resource for people. But we continue to chug along nicely. I think it’s a good place to exchange ideas, to ask questions, and feel a little less alone. This can be a very solitary profession, so helps to be able to connect with people.
Amy: 13 years of that, though, that’s dedication, like, to still be doing that. Is it the same group of moderators, or have you added more people?
Benjamin: We’ve added a few more people, yeah.
Amy: And do you have any stories? Like crazy things in the Art of Piano Pedagogy group?
Benjamin: Well, you know, what happens in the Art of Piano Pedagogy is supposed to stay in the Art of Piano Pedagogy. LOL But, but whenever people ask me about these things, I say I’ve learned two things from moderating a group for this long, and the first is that on social media, most people are quite respectful and they wanna share things.
The only downside is that you can have just one bad apple who comes in and says something that gets everybody riled up, that gets everybody raged, and, and that’s why it’s really important, I believe, to have good moderation and to have good ground rules for discussions just so you can, you can keep a professional environment.
Amy: Well, you do an excellent job of that. There’s, I think, online, you know, when you’re in groups like that, you, you start seeing people that are, are good at that, and you’re just one of those people that I just always appreciate your comments. Like, you just always say things that resonate, and just, you’re just really good at it. So thank you for the work that you’re doing there. I really appreciate it.
Benjamin: Aw. Thank you. And then, you know, the other thing is that we discovered this, now they have all these tools, so, but in the early days they didn’t have all these tools for groups, and we discovered a few years in that for every, like, comment that was written, there was often like 1,000 to one ratio of people who were commenting versus reading.
So it is a very good reminder that people, even if they aren’t commenting on things, it doesn’t mean they’re not benefiting from the discussion, and not taking part in their own way, so.
Amy: Right. Have you seen a change over the last 13 years, just the way people in- interact, or is that kinda just been steady, same old, same old?
Benjamin: I think it’s the same old, same old, and we see a lot of the same questions over and over again, but that’s okay. I think those are the questions we have as a teacher.
Amy: All right. Now, I love asking questions like this. What does a day in the life of Benjamin Steinhart look like? Or you could share your whole week if you wanted to. Any particular routines?
Benjamin: Yeah, I have a pretty steady routine. I get up on the later side, ’cause I’m a piano teacher. So I get up at about 9:00, and then I have my cup of tea, very important, and I like to get a little light exercise in just so I can get my body kinda running. I try to get a little practice in, and then I frequently either have a meeting or a lesson 11:00 AM.
So I do that from, like, 11:00 to 12:00, have a little break for lunch, and then I teach straight from 1:00 to 8:00. And then I get home, and I always have a nice, you know, meal without distractions with my husband, which is very nice. And then I try to practice for another hour or two, depending on my energy level.
And then before bed I try to read for an hour, if I have the energy, ’cause I find that gets me into a good kind of pre-bed mindset, and I like reading. But then I try to, these days now I’m only teaching five days a week. I used to teach six. So on the weekends I like to really decompress and have some quietude or do something cultural.
So the nice thing about where I live is I’m 45 minutes, or Manhattan is 45 minutes to the south of me, and then an hour north of me is very much the countryside. So I either like to go hiking up north, or I like to go into the city and I, I’m a member of a couple of museums, and I love go- seeing concerts and Broadway shows and things like that.
Amy: Oh, that’s so nice to have that variety, that option to go to the city or yeah, go to the country- Yeah … and have some quiet, and, and to have someone cook for you, which we’ll talk about more in a second.
I can’t imagine – maybe I’m just, I don’t know, lazy. LOL but I can’t imagine teaching from 1:00 to 8:00 PM five days a week. I mean, you surely take breaks. Please tell me you take breaks. LOL
Benjamin: I don’t have breaks in my schedule, but fortunately with that number of students I get a lot of cancellations throughout the week. So, so they end up working in breaks.
Amy: That helps. Yeah.
Okay, so now two areas, which we’ve kind of already mentioned one of them a little bit, that you are an ex- expert in, of course, technique, being trained in the Taubman approach, and I also know that you are kind of an, a music learning theory person from, roughly from what I see online. I’m just wondering how both Taubman and MLT were first brought into your life. And of course, as an MLT person myself, I’m especially curious on how it has impacted your teaching the most.
Benjamin: Oh, sure. I’ll start with Taubman, I guess. When I was an undergrad, I was not injured. I did have some bad tendonitis in high school when I was getting ready for auditions, but I managed to get through my undergrad without injury.
However, I was very frustrated as a pianist. I found I just couldn’t do certain things, and the absolute worst point of my musical career was I had to get ready Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto for a competition real fast. I had like a month to learn it. And the beginning of the piece opens with a kind of very fast alberti basses, and the end ends with these very fast double thirds.
And in both cases, I felt like my arms were gonna fall off. I was getting, like, burning and the whole thing there. And there is no worse way to play a piece than have the very beginning and the very end of the piece just be a disaster. And because of that, I just was sort of looking for solutions, and I found they were doing like a weekend-long seminar at Lincoln Center.
So I went there, and that’s where I kind of got involved in Taubman work. And, and for your listeners who aren’t familiar with Dorothy Taubman, she, her, her focus was on developing a approach to piano technique that was based on biomechanics and ergonomics rather than what I think we often do, which is, like, exercises like Hanon, Czerny, Pianist, you know, that kind of thing.
So she was very interested in how the fingers, the hand, and the forearm work together as a coordinated unit. And so it’s all about learning to play with ease and efficiency and freedom while avoiding unnecessary tension. So I’ve been doing that since 2004, and that I do consider myself kind of an expert in.
And then MLT I probably got into around- Hmm, around 2000, 2000, 2007, 2008. That’s when I first started teaching full-time. And I was just looking for different ways to approach teaching younger children ’cause at that point I had, I had taught some older students, but I really hadn’t taught any five or six-year-olds, et cetera.
And I just read pretty much everything Dr. Gordon had, had written. And then around 2013, I got to know Marilyn Lowe quite well, who’s the author of the Music Moves series which is based on Gordon’s work. And it was nice. I, I only met her in person a handful of times at conferences and at, at, at seminars.
But we chatted pretty much every day online for a period of several years. Wow. And it was really fun exchanging ideas with her. The things that I think I take with me about Gordon’s work is that my background is, you know, is in classical music. I have a classical training. And because of that, I think I always had an image of, of the score as the primary way of transmitting music.
So almost like music is a visual medium. But music is fundamentally an oral art form, and I think we lose a lot when we became, we become so overly focused on notation and on teaching notation And the other important commonality between Taubman and, and Gordon, I think is their understanding that music-making is fundamentally about patterns and about relationships.
Amy: Amen.
Benjamin: And, yeah. And I’m actually gonna take this over to, to food, ’cause I wanna talk about food.
Amy: Let’s do it.
Benjamin: So, I’m not a chef myself, but I’m married to a really fabulous cook. And one observation Marc has about home cooks is that when they look at a recipe, they often feel very compelled to follow every single step exactly, because they think of each recipe as something entirely separate from another.
And when you become more of an experienced cook, what you learn is that cooking is very much about ratios and formulas. So a vinaigrette, for instance, is, you know, roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar, and then you can have a custard or a crème anglaise, and that’s like, you know, various proportions of dairy, egg yolk, and, and, and sugar.
And when you get these basic formulas down, cooking becomes actually more creative, even though it seems kinda dry knowing the formula. And I think the same is true of music. So I think when most musicians, particularly amateur musicians, look at a page, they just see this endless collection of notes.
And but Gordon really understood that music has a rhythmic vocabulary, and it has a harmonic vocabulary, and that these exist within a larger context of tonality and meter. And when you teach kids, you can teach them through singing and through chanting, through movement. But we can teach them to recognize these patterns and internalize them without having long-winded theoretical explanations And similarly, I think Taubman has very clear recipes, if you will, for how to handle various technical problems of the instrument.
So if you wanna play an easy fluid scale at the piano provided everything’s kind of well-aligned and balanced in terms of your fingers and your hand and your forearm and how they relate to your torso, we can use this, this kind of recipe of, of, of rotation, of lateral movements and elliptical movements to approach pretty much any scale.
And because of that, when you get a new technical problem, you don’t say to yourself, “Oh, no, there, I have no way to do this other than to practice it over and over.” You have something you can bring to it, which you have already tried and tested, that will work consistently.
Amy: Wow. There’s a lot there. I love that. Yeah. I’m sitting here like, “Yes, yes, yes.” So many good things. So first of all, I was the same with MLT, like the, the thing that took me there first and foremost back in, well, I think I first learned about it in grad school, which was like 2009 for me, so a little bit- Mm-hmm after you.
But then about 2013, when I kind of first opened my studio, I was looking for a better way of teaching young beginners, and I just, I tried all the methods that were out there, and it just was not resonating, and I just really wanted something more that spoke to the student and their age and how they, you know, learned at that age.
And I didn’t know what it was at the time, but, you know, as I, I knew about Marilyn and about MLT from grad studies and stuff, so I kinda started looking into it more and trying it out and everything, and it just, everything just there really resonated with me. And then that kinda led me to do the training in 2016 with her.
But her first two books, The Keyboard Games A and B To me, are just gold. I love those for my young beginners. Now, have you ever used them?
Benjamin: Oh, I used them yesterday. Yes, absolutely.
Amy: Okay, yes. They’re wonderful, wonderful. And actually I do a whole presentation now on, I have a session called Before the Notes: A Musical Start for Young Beginners, and it focuses on sharing these books with teachers.
Because not a lot of people, I think, know about them, and her materials can be a little bit overwhelming at first when you’re, you know, studying it on your own and everything. So just trying to put it, you know, in front of teachers and say, “This is something that we can, you know, use for these young beginners,” and to, you know, give them a musical foundation. And we don’t have to tell them that a quarter note equals one beat right away. We can just say the pattern is Du, Du-de or Bah, Ba-ba. You know?
Benjamin: If you don’t mind, I just add about Marilyn’s books, if you just get the book itself, it’s like there’s nothing on the page and you wonder what is this. So all the meat is in the teacher’s guides, and you don’t have to follow them exactly, but that’s where you really learn how to teach these patterns, et cetera.
Amy: Absolutely. Yeah, and that, that’s just been another total revelation, is thinking about music and teaching as, as it is patterns. It’s not individual things. It’s patterns and it’s context, and so many things that we could go into.
Amy: All right. So now you already brought up food, so I’m gonna ask you a little bit about that some more. I love all your connections to food and how Marc thinks about recipes. I’ll admit, I’ve always been more of a recipe person myself.
I understand, the more I cook and the longer I’ve been cooking, I am finally getting to that point where I am understanding more of those ratios, and finally feeling the freedom. But I always had to start, you know, with, “Oh, I’ve gotta have this specific recipe.”
And I think it’s actually kind of the same with MLT, as you were saying as well, where it, I kind of needed some parameters, you know, as I was learning how to teach, and, like, kind of the specific…
You know, trying out Marilyn’s teaching steps in all of her books first. And then the more I do it, it’s like, now I can make it my own. Hmm. And like, now I understand how I can approach this in so many different ways, you know? But first, like I, with my cooking, I had to start with a recipe first and then learn how to eventually go from there.
There’s actually a book out there called Ratio. Have you ever heard of it?
Benjamin: I have.
Amy: You have? You have or you haven’t?
Benjamin: I have. Yes, I own it.
Amy: It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but yes, it, that, that speaks of everything. So I have, I’ve really enjoyed watching you guys on social media and all of your meals that Marc makes for you every day, or the holidays, or whatever. Do you guys eat like that, like every single day? Is it always, like piles and piles of delicious food?
Benjamin: Pretty well on a daily basis, yeah. LOL And since COVID, we really don’t eat out. One, because it’s just become so expensive, but two, the food’s kinda disappointing when I eat out usually, so…
Amy: My husband and I have gotten that way too, where you just kinda go and you’re just like, “Oh, it’s so much better at home.”
Benjamin: Yeah, yeah.
Amy: Now, I think you might have said this before. Does he do all the cooking, or do you like to cook some as well? I do the simplest of cooking. That’s all I do. But I’m a very good eater, and I’m a very good dishwasher. And I have had thousands of pound- thousands of hours of cooking programs foisted upon me over the decades. So I feel like this is a topic I feel comfortable in. LOL
Amy: My husband is the exact same way. I think when we were first married, we started watching America’s Test Kitchen.
Benjamin: Oh, yes. I think I’ve watched every season at least five times at this point.
Amy: We were also getting all the Cook’s Illustrated books, and then eventually, I moved to having a membership on their website and yeah, so he’s, he’s similar to you. He, he knows the routines. LOL
So I have always wondered, is Marc a trained chef, or does he just enjoy cooking?
Benjamin: Marc is a composer. He writes both classical music and the new music, whatever you wanna call it, and he also does musical theater. But yeah, he’s been cooking for me since we were r- we were in the dorms at, at Manhattan School of Music back a bazillion years ago. He does have, he did get a couple professional certificates in, like meat preparation, and food hygiene, and stuff so if he wanted to, he could do this professionally, but he just loves to cook, yes.
Amy: Which by the way, I saw you just celebrated 24 years.
Benjamin: Yes, yes.
Amy: Yes. Congratulations.
Benjamin: Thank you.
Amy: And we did too! Actually, we’re like two months prior… Ours was in August.
Benjamin: Oh, wonderful.
Amy: So we’re really close on our anniversaries.
Well, the holidays are coming up, do you guys have any special plans for meals for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or anything that you normally do, or do you always have something different at the holidays?
Benjamin: Well, I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving, but I actually these days look even more forward to Friendsgiving, which is what we do like a week or two beforehand. And I kinda like it ’cause y- I like having the traditional things, but on Friendsgiving he does like twists on things. So for instance, we have turkey confit.
Amy: Ooh.
Benjamin: And we have like, a pumpkin flan, and kinda twists on it, and I, I think the food’s actually a little more exciting for me at this point. I like variety, so.
Amy: Right, right. Yeah. That sounds amazing. Well, I’ll look forward to seeing photos, so be sure and share.
Well, I have been publishing a blog post series since 2016 called Friday Finds. It started as a weekly series, and now it’s monthly. If you had anything that you could share, just anything that you have found interesting in recent days that you think teachers might enjoy, it could be anything, studio or life related, what’s something that you would add to that list of Friday Finds?
Benjamin: Okay, I got two things for you. The first is for more advanced players. I don’t think people know about this that much, but it, you can go to AliciadeLaroccha.com, as in the great Spanish pianist. It’s a huge website run, I believe, by her daughter. And in it, if you go to catalog, you can find her hand-annotated scores for every single piece she ever performed.
Amy: No way. Yeah. That’s amazing.
Benjamin: And she was a very small-handed pianist, so they’re really fascinating to look at because it has her fingerings, it has her redistributions, and it even has spots where she changes the notes or, like, switches it an octave or something so she can fit it in her hands which is, which is quite fascinating to look at, and I think great even if you’re not a small-handed pianist to kinda see how such a great pianist handled the repertoire.
Amy: Yeah. Oh, that’s so interesting. Well, I’ll definitely look that up and get a link- Mm-hmm … in the show notes for that for teachers. Yeah. All right, and the second one is?
Benjamin: And the second one is just Amy Glennon Watts has put out two new books under Piano Safari. I’ve been teaching them particularly with my students who tend to be more ADD and et cetera. And I think they’re called Friends at Last! and Here Comes Trouble. And they each are accompanied by a story about a dog and a cat or couple cats. And they’re just really fun rote pieces, and every… These, my kids are just loving them at the moment, so I highly recommend.
Amy: Yes. I’m familiar with those, and they’re wonderful. I haven’t done much in the second book yet, but I’ve used the first book a few times with students. So very fun and just creative. So, so many great things coming from Piano Safari and Amy both.
Well, is there anything else that we didn’t chat about today that you would like to share with listeners?
Benjamin: The other thing I wanted to talk about briefly was community, ’cause I think that’s kind of what I’m focused on these days. I think we are kind of inundated with AI and with, with information. So I think it’s nice as music teachers just to have, even if it’s in an online space or in a, a physical space, to have places where we can chat and get to know each other and discuss teaching.
Amy: Absolutely. I know that’s so important to stay connected in, in this profession. Yeah. And you’re a huge part of that, like, in the whole, you know, Facebook group and everything. So yeah, thankful that we have technology that we can do things like this these, these days. It’s really amazing.
Benjamin: Yeah.
Amy: Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today. I really enjoyed our chat and getting to know you.
Benjamin: Thank you, Amy.
Did Benjamin know who he was talking to or what, when he made all those wonderful, spot-on connections between cooking and teaching? He is such a wonderfully insightful person, and as you heard me tell him in this episode, he’s a voice in the field for whom I have so much respect. I hope you were as inspired as I was by this peek into Benjamin’s vibrant and busy piano-teacher-life.
As you start preparing for your own holiday celebrations, be sure to check the Piano Piano blog for recipes. You’ll find creamy olive-topped deviled eggs, which – at least in the mid-west – are a must-have appetizer at at least one holiday celebration. Coming soon are my favorite maple-Dijon roasted brussels sprouts, as well as an easy cream cheese and red pepper jelly appetizer so keep an eye out for those posts.
There are also ideas for homemade student Christmas gifts, like caramel corn, snack mix, and hot cocoa mix. And coming soon: my 2026 student gifts, the most delightful Cookie Butter Rice Crispy Treats.
If you enjoy this ad-free podcast, I invite you to help support the work on Patreon for as little as $4 a month. Finally, before you go, would you take two seconds to make sure you’re subscribed in your podcast app of choice, and another moment to rate and review?
May you have a blessed November, friend. Thanks for being here.
