Awards
TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Established in 2005, the Teacher of the Year Award is presented to the candidate who most clearly demonstrates a strong commitment to the music teaching profession and outstanding service to MMTA.
Any current member of MMTA may nominate a fellow teacher.
Do you know an outstanding MMTA teacher who should be recognized?
Please submit a letter of recommendation including the following:
Number of years the candidate has been a member of MMTA
How the candidate has served the MMTA organization (on the board, as a volunteer, etc.)
Means by which the candidate has furthered the music teacher profession and MMTA as an organization
A brief description of the candidate's longevity in their profession and adherence to professional standards
Any other special attributes or recognition
*Nomination deadline: February 1st of each year Send to: Application Chair
2024: Esther Ning Yau
Esther Ning Yau is an active and versatile pianist based in the New England region. Known for her work in chamber music, Esther’s expertise extends to the realms of solo piano, orchestral piano and even other keyboard instruments such as harpsichord and celesta.
Esther has been featured in concerts at Jordan Hall, Emmanuel Music Chamber Series, Harvard Musical Association Concert Series, Harvard-Epworth Concert Series, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Concert Series, Longy SeptemberFest, WCRB Live at Copley, Newport Symposium, and Bar Harbor Music Festival. Esther has also appeared in numerous concert venues further afield, including Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Museum of Arts in Puerto Rico, Giovanni Arvedi Auditorium in Cremona, Esplanade Recital Studio in Singapore, National Concert Hall in Taipei, and Government House in her hometown Hong Kong.
An adventurous musician, Esther has performed many young composers’ works (such as Garrett Byrnes’ Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra and Derek Bermel’s Tied Shifts for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano and Percussion), as well as works by lesser-known composers (such as Fanny Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet), in addition to the standard repertoire.
In recent years, Esther has been programming complete cycles of works. To date, she has successfully performed cycles of Beethoven’s piano trios, violin sonatas and cello sonatas. The upcoming season will feature cycles of Schumann’s piano trios, violin sonatas, and cello-piano works.
Esther is a faculty member of Longy School of Music of Bard College and New England Conservatory’s Preparatory and Continuing Education departments. In the summer, She also teaches at the Cremona International Music Academy in Italy.
Esther Ning Yau holds a double Master’s Degree in Piano Performance and Collaborative Piano from New England Conservatory, where she studied with Patricia Zander and Irma Vallecillo. Honors received include fellowships from International Institute of Vocal Arts in Italy, UCLA Song Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West and Yellow Barn Music Festival. Esther is also a member of the New England Conservatory Alumni Council.
PAST RECIPIENTS:
2022: Yulia Potvin Zhuraleva
2020: Ellyses Kuan
2019: Valerie Stark
2017: Heather Rogers Riley
2016: Dorothy Travis
2015: Elizabeth Reed
2014: Vivian Tsang
2013: Alison Barr, NCTM
2012: Vera Rubin
2011: Nilly Shilo
2010: Steve Zocchi
2009: Michelle Gordon, NCTM
2008: Shelley Reeves, NCTM
2007: Joan Garniss, NCTM
2006: Kathy Maskell, NCTM
2005: Helena Vesterman
DISTINGUISHED TEACHER AWARD
This award was established in 2022 to recognize an MMTA Member Teacher for dedication and artistry in music teaching.
Any current member of MMTA may nominate a fellow teacher.
Do you know an outstanding MMTA teacher who should be recognized?
Please submit a letter of recommendation including the following:
Number of years the nominee has been a member of MMTA;
Which MMTA programs the nominee’s students have participated in and for how many years;
A description and/or data on student accomplishments such as:
performing music at the highest level in recitals and master classes
receiving awards in MMTA contests or competitions
demonstrating a high degree of expression and artistry
Any other special attributes, recognition, professional service and MMTA positions the nominee has held.
Please include a biography of the nominee, so that the Board may better acquaint themselves with the nominee’s accomplishments.
*Nomination deadline: February 1st of each year. Send to: Application Chair
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Established in 2003, the Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to long-term members who have served their students and MMTA faithfully and with distinction over many years.
PAST RECIPIENTS
2017: Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee
Dianne was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, February 9, 1938, and began her early musical training as a pianist in Boston with Antoine Louis Moeldner who studied with two of Leschetitzky's most illustrious pupils, Helen Hopekirk and Paderewski. Moeldner was also a teaching assistant to Ossip Gabrilovich in New York. Helen Hopekirk was a respected composer as well as pianist and served as a role model for Goolkasian Rahbee at an early age. Goolkasian Rahbee continued her studies at Juilliard as a piano major and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria studying chamber music with Enrico Mainardi. In later years, she studied piano privately with David Saperton in New York and Lily Dumont, Russell Sherman, and Veronica Jochum in Boston.
At the age of 40, she began concentrating more seriously at composing and has since produced a large body of works for piano solo, orchestra, instrumental ensembles, percussion, and voice. In 1985, she was elected President of American Women Composers, Massachusetts Chapter and founded its annual marathon. Her music has been performed in Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy; Japan, Korea, Latvia; Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, etc. and throughout the U.S.
As a first generation Armenian-American whose father was a survivor of the genocide, her music reflects a deep rooted ethnic background. The strong influences of her first spoken language, Armenian, and the folk music she grew up with, are important elements in her musical language. Her early love for music was sparked by her talented violinist mother.
Her older son David Alexander Rahbee, formerly conductor of the “Fidelio Chamber Orchestra” in Boston, lived and studied in Vienna, Austria for ten years, and began his conducting career. After recently receiving his DMA from Montreal University, he has accepted a position at the University of Washington in Seattle as conductor and teacher of conducting. Her younger son Adam Rahbee, a transportation engineering graduate of MIT, plays organ, clavichord and harpsichord. Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee teaches piano privately at her home in Belmont, Massachusetts and gives workshops, lectures and master classes internationally. Performance rights are licensed through BMI.
2016: Maria Reesman
2013: Joan Garniss
2012: Irene Reed
MTNA FOUNDATION FELLOWS
The Music Teachers National Association Foundation Fellow program offers a meaningful method for honoring deserving individuals while supporting the efforts of the MTNA Foundation Fund through a donation to the Foundation Fund in an individual’s name.
Learn more about the process HERE.
CURRENT AND PAST RECIPIENTS:
2022 Alison Barr
2014 George Litterst
2022: Alison Barr
We are very proud to announce that the MMTA Board has approved the $1500 donation to the MTNA Foundation Fund in honor of our very own 2022 Foundation Fellow, Alison Barr. Alison will be honored at the MTNA Convention in Minneapolis at the Banquet in March, 2022.
Alison operates an independent studio in Hanover, Massachusetts, where she passionately teaches young beginners through advanced avocational adults locally and remotely.
Alison’s original thinking and zest for life have contributed to the creation of the “Midwinter/Midsummer Adult Piano Retreats” in Florida and the Berkshires and MMTA’s Music Connect Program, offering lessons tuition-free to deserving students. She serves on the board of American Voices, a cultural diplomacy program with which she teaches as a volunteer in the Middle East. Alison has served four terms as President of Massachusetts and Maine.
2014: George Litterst
George Litterst, a graduate of Vassar College and New England Conservatory, has had a long and distinguished career as an educator, clinician and performer.
Litterst is an internationally recognized expert on distance learning and artistic applications of the Yamaha Disklavier. He is a “Random Access” columnist for American Music Teacher magazine, technology editor for Clavier Companion magazine and regularly contributes to many other publications.
Two products—the Yamaha Disklavier and Litterst’s own software creation Home Concert Xtreme—have been awarded the MTNA Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award under his guidance.