Paul Myatt
Paul is a passionate teacher, performer, author, composer and workshop facilitator. His purpose and passion is to continue to learn and work with people to assist them in developing their skills to achieve their goals. His experience extends across many fields: business, music, technology and sport.
Paul is a founding director and co-owner of Forte School of Music, a thriving and growing franchise network of music schools with over 6,000 students across 17 locations in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Since 1994, he has worked with his franchise partners to help them build their businesses in all areas including marketing, human resources, management and administration. As the co-author of many Forte course books, Paul has also co-created the Forte School of Music Teacher Training programmes which thousands of teachers have participated in. He is co-writer of the easiLEARNmusic educational text books which are published/distributed in Australia and the United Kingdom by Hal Leonard Corporation, the world’s largest music publisher. He is a regular contributor to the Australian Piano Teacher Magazine and is currently working on a book to be released in 2019 for the 25th anniversary of Forte School of Music. As a music teacher and presenter, Paul facilitates a range of workshops which he has created including:
Paul has been a board member of Orchestras Australia and the president of the St Lucia Orchestra. He is currently a member of Symphony Chorus, which sings with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the musical director and pianist in a cabaret show. |
Susan Head
Susan has 25 years experience as a piano teacher in my own studio as well as at St Catherines School for Girls, Waverley NSW. I teach across the range of abilities from age 4 to adults (60+) and have a particular interest in building performance skills (for which I give master classes and individual coaching).
I began teaching in 1992 at the suggestion of one of my piano teachers (Gerard Willems) after a career playing piano as an entertainer (5 star hotels in Australia and overseas, hundreds of weddings (the best parties!)and accompanist for theatre and ballet. Additionally I have taught music and singing in a group environment to Diploma students at Dynamite Dance studios, Brent Street Dance Academy and NAISDA Dance College (National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Association Dance College prior to its move to Gosford) as well music enrichment classes for younger students for the Suzuki Talent Education Association of Australia. After studying the Dalcroze approach for a year with Jeff Wiley and the Kodaly Approach with Doreen Bridges for 2 years I finally settled on the Orff Schulwerk approach to Music Education as the approach which most resonated with my own experience of music. This was for several reasons - it incorporated the movement ideas from Dalcroze and the singing of Solfege and use of Curwen handsigns from Kodaly but best of all it was the collegiate exchanges and generous spirit of the members of the Association that encouraged me to train for the Levels Courses and finally do my Graduate Diploma in Orff Music Education through the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne under the tutelage of Christoph Maubach and I have been a member of the NSW Orff Schulwerk Association since 1998, convened the ANCOS (the National Orff Schulwerk body) conference in 2006 and have taught the Orff Schulwerk approach as part of the Significant Methods course to Bachelor of Music Education students at the Sydney Conservatorium. Currently I am working with Paul Myatt (director of Forte Music Schools) to bring the ideas behind the Orff pedagogy and whole body learning to the piano teachers community Australia wide. We began this project in 2017 as a repertoire based practice using pieces from the new Trinity College Syllabus for 2018 - 2022 and with the support of Barry Warmsley (Australian National Manager for Trinity College London) held a successful full day workshop in Sydney at Kings College and also in Brisbane. Similarly in 2018 the Sydney Conservatorium Open Academy engaged us to present a full day workshop using pieces from the just published AMEB Piano for Leisure Series 4. This year we are presenting another days workshop for them using the new Piano repertoire for Series 18 Piano on 31 March. |