Carol Wickham-Revier named Teacher of the Year

[Longmont Times-Call]

Carol Wickham-Revier was named 2014 Colorado State Music Teachers Association (CSMTA) Teacher of the Year in June at the CSMTA State Conference held in Fort Collins.

Carol Wickham-Revier was recently named 2014 Colorado State Music Teachers Association (CSMTA) Teacher of the Year. A piano teacher in the Boulder area for over 40 years, Carol received the award during the CSMTA State Conference held in early June in Fort Collins. The 700-member organization, comprised primarily of independent music teachers, annually selects one member from among its ranks who best represents its ideals, standards and goals in the field of independent music teaching.

Carol’s accomplishments and her contributions to both BAMTA (Boulder Area Music Teacher’s Assoc.) and CSMTA are many. On the state level, she has filled the role of CSMTA vice president for teacher enrichment. Additionally, Carol worked for CSMTA President Mary Elizabeth Clark and helped to found CSMTA’s Achievement Day in the early 1970’s.

She has served two terms as president of BAMTA and has also contributed locally as BAMTA recital chair, Baroque Festival chair, treasurer, program chair or program co-chair several times, Achievement Day chair or co-chair and editor of a Boulder Music Teachers Directory back in the 1970’s. Perhaps Carol’s greatest legacy is the founding of the BAMTA Multiple Piano Festival (MPF).

In 1984, while working as marketing director of Chris Finger Pianos in Niwot, Carol noticed a line of seven grand pianos with all the lids up at the same angle and wondered what it would be like to hear all those pianos “sing” at the same time. From somewhat humble beginnings, the event, held annually on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, now includes nearly 300 pianists, ages 6 to 60 plus, performing 24-at-a-time on 12 grand pianos with a conductor at the helm to an audience of over 900 in Longmont’s beautiful Vance Brand Auditorium. Since its inception, she has co-chaired the event nine times and served as the MPF auditions chair an equal number of times. Now in its 28th year, the event provides scholarship money so that talented, hard-working students whose families have come upon hard times can continue with piano lessons regardless of their family finances, awarding over $2000 per year in scholarships. Carol emphasizes that the event benefits all participants by developing reading, ensemble playing, accompanying, and general musicianship skills – not to mention creating friendships that can sometimes last a lifetime.

Carol entered the University of Colorado College of Music in 1967 on a Regents Scholarship, graduated with degrees in piano performance and piano pedagogy in 1971 and 1976 respectively, and received her NCTM (Nationally Certified Teacher of Music) certification in 1972. Trained as a classical pianist, Carol has enlarged her horizons by becoming a certified Kindermusik teacher and studying jazz piano.

During the 1980’s, she was a member of a four-hand piano team, frequently performing recitals of duet and solo repertoire throughout Colorado.

Carol is a long-time advocate of the motivational power of one’s peers. As an experienced and sought-after accompanist herself, she considers collaboration to be the foundation of her teaching; collaboration between teacher and student, between student and student in group classes, and between pianist and members of out-of-studio ensembles. She is convinced that empowerment of students is the key to motivation, and strives at each lesson to find ways to help students take charge and accept responsibility for their own learning. She regularly attends both state and national conferences as well as local workshops, teaches 35-40 private students per week, ages 6 to 70, in her four-piano/one harpsichord independent home studio in Lafayette and is on a journey to understand more, with each passing year, about how humans learn and what motivates us.