Already a devoted piano student by the time she entered high school, Liz was encouraged by her teacher to try her hand at teaching privately when she was fifteen. By then, she was already composing her own songs and had become a regular church keyboard sub. 

 

Her high school years offered an unparalleled immersion in piano which centered on the role of highschool  accompanist and rehearsal pianist. A weekly job materialized at a local lodge where Liz and a school friend cut their teeth (and fingertips and vocal chords) on forgotten melodies from the American past. By this time Liz had begun to collect old American sheet music, an interest that has had far-reaching consequences in her musical life. 

 

After years of continued study, practice, performing, and teaching Liz founded PianoGarden in 1997. In addition to her own studio, Liz has taught at a private academy in St. Paul since 2008.

 

Liz’s desire to share music she loves extends actively to the performance realm. She has over the years performed in, and produced, musical events from Minneapolis to Maui, both collaboratively as well as on her own. She delights in introducing audiences to genres, composers, and gems in the piano repertoire that are little known, from classical to jazz to Latin to pop.

 

Her own teachers are revered and many, and have included jazz pianist Mary Louise Knutson; composer Philip Rhodes; and process work author Lane Arye, creator of Unintentional Music.

 

A life-time student of arts and humanities, Liz holds degrees from Middlebury College (1977) and the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism (2017).

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