Teaching with The RCM Piano Syllabus and Celebration Series®

Presenter: Elaine Rusk
Vice President of Academics and Publishing, Elaine Rusk is a well-respected business leader, with more than twenty years of experience in all aspects of The Royal Conservatory's academic and publishing divisions. As the head of RCM Publishing, Ms. Rusk oversees the publication of the organization's flute, guitar, and voice series, as well as the award-winning Celebration Series® for piano. In less than a three-year period, she led the development and launch of repertoire, etudes, orchestral excerpts, and technique books and recordings for six new instrumental series including cello, clarinet, viola, violin, saxophone, and trumpet. Ms. Rusk is key to the development of new digital initiatives underway at The Royal Conservatory.
 

Presenter: Dr. Janet Lopinski
Dr. Janet Lopinski has had a long and multi-faceted connection with The Royal Conservatory that includes teaching in the Oscar Peterson School of Music, Young Artists Performance Academy and Glenn Gould School; examining both practical and theoretical subjects; serving as Chief Examiner, author, workshop clinician, and currently as Senior Director, Academic Programs. Dr. Lopinski has represented The Royal Conservatory in over 200 presentations over the past three decades, including national, provincial, regional and local events, and encompassing every province of Canada, and much of the United States. As an examiner, she has assessed thousands of students from coast to coast, served as mentor to many new examiners, and now provides leadership for the College of Examiners.

Presenter: Dr. Jonathan Roberts
Dr. Jonathan Roberts is the owner/ director of the South Shore Piano School in Boston. Jonathan is an examiner for RCM, and the state competition chair and president-elect for the Massachusetts chapter of the MTNA.
 

Presenter: Maria Case
​RCM Chief Examiner Emeritus Maria Case is a Toronto-based pianist, choral conductor, composer and teacher. She holds ARCT Performance Diplomas in Piano and Voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Toronto. ​Additional studies include conducting, graduate studies in English literature, and jazz studies at Berklee College.

Presenter: Dr. Diana Dumlavwalla
Canadian pianist Diana Dumlavwalla is Associate Professor of Piano Pedagogy at Florida State University. Previously, Diana taught at Western University where she developed the faculty’s inaugural doctoral piano pedagogy course. She also serves as a member of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s College of Examiners and adjudicates at local, regional and state/provincial competitions.
 

Presenter: Dr. Dale Wheeler
After teaching at the post-secondary level for over thirty years Dr. Dale Wheeler now enjoys life as an independent musician. He has performed, adjudicated, and presented at conferences across North America and in Europe. He is a long-standing member of The RCM College of Examiners and serves as a contract specialist for the Adjudicator Certification Program. 
 

Presenter: Dr. Stephen Pierce
South African-born pianist Dr. Stephen Pierce enjoys a multi-faceted career as a respected teacher, presenter, performer, adjudicator and scholar. At the USC Thornton School of Music, he oversees the secondary piano and keyboard pedagogy programs and teaches applied piano, courses in piano pedagogy and keyboard literature. Pierce also teaches piano privately in Pasadena, CA, and at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan each summer.
 

Presenter; Dr. Asher Armstrong
A passionate, committed teacher, Asher is an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Arkansas, having formerly served on the Piano Faculty of the University of Toronto as a lecturer of Piano and Undergraduate and Graduate Piano Literature. He also maintains an active concert career