Eliana performs in her home studio on a Yamaha G3 with a DS5.5 keyboard!
Eliana Yi and Friends
PROGRAM
Frederic Chopin: Waltz in a minor B.150
Aidan Yonley (age 9)
Frank Proto: Sonata "1963" for Double Bass and Piano
Troy Tippawang
Eliana Yi
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Prelude in B-flat Major Op.23 No.2
Eliana Yi
BIOS
Eliana Yi, (B.M. '19, M.M. '21) is a private teacher in the East Plano area. She is known for fostering a love for music and piano in her students and her approach toward healthy piano playing. She performs regularly as a solo artist, both live and recorded, on her 5.5" keyboard, a custom-made piano designed for smaller hands. She had the fortune over the last three years to teach in the Seattle area and be a faculty member at the prestigious Chopin Academy of the Arts. Her students perform regularly for their community and participate in festivals and competitions, winning many accolades and awards.
Eliana graduated from her position as a teaching fellow at the Meadows School of the Arts from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. During her position there, she studied Piano Pedagogy and Performance where she took private instruction with Dr. Carol Leone and teaching supervision with Dr. Cathy Lysinger. During there she was a recipient for the Paul von Katwijk prize and Roy and Sue Johnson Award for Piano Pedagogy.
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Eliana had an active childhood playing cello and piano in chamber groups, orchestras, and debuting as a recitalist. She was an active performer and member of Classical Music for the World in Austin, Texas. She has performed around the state of Texas, Washington, and Germany. In 2019, she presented her research on alternatively sized keyboards at the MTNA Piano Pedagogy Collegiate Symposium in Indiana and her research on teaching small handed students at the 2021 NCKP Convention. She is currently a team member and performer for the International Stretto Piano Festivals, and a speaker for Pianists for Alternatively-Sized Keyboards (PASK) and an adjudicator for her local area. In her free time, Eliana enjoys writing nerdy sci-fi stories. She is a proud mother of a little baby boy.
An in-demand bassist and passionate music educator, Troy Tippawang has been performing on major stages across North Texas since he was 12. A graduate of Southern Methodist University, Troy studied with Thomas Lederer and Brian Perry of the Dallas Symphony, and completed both undergraduate and master's degrees in bass performance. Troy was principal bass of the Meadows Symphony Orchestra and logged many hours under the baton of Paul Phillips, which prepared him well for large ensemble work after grad school. In addition to chamber music and orchestral bass sections, Troy performs in ensembles ranging from new music concerts to jazz bands, rock bands, worship groups, and choirs.
In 2020, Troy and his wife Hannah Abercrombie (piano) co-founded Aberwang Music (www.aberwangmusic.com), a successful music studio teaching piano and string students in the North Texas area. Troy has been teaching music (not just bass!) since 2013, and his students have regularly won awards, participated in region and state orchestra programs, high-level youth orchestras in the area, and several have gone on to receive scholarships and study music in college.
"One always holds one's breath for the third movement's double bass solo...Hats off, then, to Troy Tippawang, who played it flawlessly."
-Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News (referring to Mahler's 1st)
Aidan Yonley began taking piano lessons in kindergarten, studying for five months with his first teacher before continuing on his own until returning last fall to study with Mrs. Yi. Earlier this year, he performed for the first time at the Sonatina Festival in Plano, Texas. In addition to music, Aidan has played in a soccer team since age three, loves painting, and can spend hours designing marble tracks or collecting treasures from nature on his bike rides. He thinks math is fun and earned an honorable mention in the Noetic Math contest this year. HIs favorite book series is "Harry Potter," his favorite movie series is "The Lord of the Rings," and in the summer he loves diving with his dad at the beach.