Ruth Shyu
Pianist, Teacher, Composer
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I started piano lessons with a neighborhood teacher when I was six. After several relocations, I fortuitously met Ms. Cheng, a strict but extremely encouraging teacher. Under her guidance, I fell in love with Bach's Inventions and Mozart's Sonatas and began to develop a passion for playing. Throughout high school, I played in competitions and recitals, and was an accompanist for my school choir. Those activities gave me much joy and a sense of identity.
My first college degree was in computer science from M.I.T. But I continued to study the piano with Mr. David Deveau at M.I.T. Music seeped into my engineering work. For a lab project, I built a digital music synthesizer. My graduating thesis was about digital music input methods. When I finished my studies there, I performed Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with the M.I.T. Symphony Orchestra. It was one of the most gratifying experiences for me.
After working for a number of years in IT, I decided to switch career to music. I applied to Berklee College of Music and was accepted. Berklee rounded off my music education with an exposure to jazz, improvisation, composition and arranging. I also completed a full year of piano pedagogy training under Jean Stackhouse at the New England Conservatory to prepare myself to apply my deep piano playing skills in teaching.
After graduating from Berklee in 2001, I began to teach first at private schools and community music schools in the greater Boston area. As I received more and more validations, I started my own studio. Soon, my students started to win competitions and earn meritorious recognitions on their piano exams. By 2012, my teaching work was quite established.
In 2016, I relocated to Los Angeles for family reasons. I briefly served on the piano faculty of Opus119 School of Music in Irvine and the Cerritos Yamaha Music School before settling in Cerritos where my current teaching studio is.
I continue to upgrade my skills and knowledge by attending teachers' conferences and workshops, and staying current with my own readings and research on piano playing and teaching.
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A big part of my music career besides teaching is composing/arranging. I received the 2002 Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (The Emmy Foundation) Music Internship award, which gave me an opportunity to work with current TV music composers in Hollywood. I interned with Alf Clausen (composer for “The Simpsons”) and Jonathan Wolff (composer for “Seinfeld”, “Will & Grace”, “Reba”, etc). I was also the recipient of an ASCAP award for my piano compositions.
Writing worship music is one of my favorite activities. I have written many instrumental arrangements of traditional hymns and composed original music for children’s choir. Much of these were used in services at Park Street Church in Boston. For more information, please visit my Composer website.
