Ingrid Keller, pianist, is a native of Boston, Massachusetts. She received her Bachelor of Music degree, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University. While there, she was nominated by the faculty as one of their most outstanding pianists to participate in the 2002 Thaivu-Isaac Competition, which she won.
Keller earned a Master of Music degree and a Performer Diploma, both with high distinction, at Indiana University’s prestigious Jacobs School of Music, under the tutelage of Menahem Pressler. She has received numerous prizes and honors including first place in the MTNA East Central Division in 2004.
In 2008, she participated in the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project representing the IU Jacobs School of Music. Keller has been the resident coach/accompanist for Indianapolis Opera’s Young Artist Program and was a Piano Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the 2009 season. There she appeared as a soloist with the Mark Morris Dance Group, critics describing her performance as “Superbly performed, Keller bringing richness and transparency to the challenging score.” Ms. Keller is currently an active recitalist, collaborative artist, and teacher and is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University.
Elaine Whitaker is a new Piano, Guitar and Adaptive Lessons Teacher at Loveland Music Academy. Whitaker graduated with a degree in Music Therapy from the University of Dayton in May 2009. She finished her internship at Big Bend Hospice in Tallahassee, FL in May 2010 and passed the CBMT board exam in early September 2010. She has completed practicum semesters in nursing homes, psychiatric facilities, high school special education classrooms, early intervention preschool classrooms, and hospice wings in hospitals.
Whitaker has been playing piano since age 7 and guitar for the past 5 years. Classically trained, she also has taken three years of jazz piano. She has been singing "as long as she can remember" and has sung in school choirs, school musicals, and in a Sweet Adeline barbershop chorus. Whitaker also cantors in church and has competed in barbershop quartet competitions for 4 years. Her present barbershop quartet won the regional competition this year and will move on to Internationals in the Fall. Whitaker played flute in her grade school band and played recorder and other historical instruments as part of a medieval and Renaissance ensemble in college. She also took percussion lessons in college as part of her degree. Her newest ambitions are the ukulele and the violin.
Whitaker started teaching piano lessons her freshmen year of high school in 2001 at the Music Station in Loveland and now gives private lessons in the home. She has been giving private guitar lessons since 2009.
Her dream is to make it possible for anybody to learn to play an instrument, no matter what difficulties they are facing. Her motto can be anybody's motto, "If I can't play it yet, I will soon."
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