Dr. Anthony Belfiglio is Associate Professor of Music. He teaches courses in applied commercial piano, commercial keyboard seminar, commercial music analysis, and commercial keyboard pedagogy. He also directs and performs with the Belmont Faculty Jazz Group, an ensemble that he co-founded in 2009.

Dr. Belfiglio’s educational credentials include a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music and Human Learning/Jazz Emphasis from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from the University of Miami, a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy from Temple University, and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance from Temple University. His published books include the dissertation Fundamental Rhythmic Characteristics of Improvised Straight-Ahead Jazz (UMI) and his latest book Kenny Kirkland Solo Transcriptions (The System).

As a young musician, Dr. Belfiglio performed at various venues in the Philadelphia area. He also performed for two consecutive years at the Oberlin College Summer Piano Institute. Later, he was selected as composer/performer participant with Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead, including performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Further performances have included concerts with notable jazz artists such as Danny Gottlieb, Duffy Jackson, Brian Bromberg, Gene Perla, Jeff Berlin, Jeff Coffin, Chester Thompson, Tracy Silverman, Dave Douglas, Branford Marsalis, Kenny Garrett, Jason Marsalis, Kevin Mahogany, John Riley, John Fedchock, Steve Turre, John Blake, and Eddie Gomez. He has also performed live on Nashville National Public Radio, on Austin National Public Radio, and WFLN Philadelphia. Presently he leads his own quintet featuring the legendary drummer Danny Gottlieb, leads the Belmont Faculty Jazz Group, and plays with various musicians in the Nashville area. He also presents clinics and performances outside of Nashville, including recent presentations at the Berklee College of Music and the Beijing Academy of Contemporary Music.

Lessons Offered: Piano. Audition Required.

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Mary Countess

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Countess, also known as Ms. Mary, graduated from Belmont in 2021 with a degree in Piano Performance and Religious Studies. She is a piano teacher and collaborative pianist based in the Nashville area. In addition to her role as a rehearsal pianist for the Nashville Ballet and Nashville Children’s Choir, Mary accompanies choirs, soloists, and instrumentalists at Crievewood United Methodist Church and Montgomery Bell Academy. She also enjoys performing for musicals at Montgomery Bell and Harpeth Hall schools. Mary is an active member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), including both the state and local branches.

Ms. Mary’s teaching philosophy focuses on making music both enjoyable and rewarding for students. She encourages them to consistently strive for excellence while ensuring that lessons remain fun. Through her approach, she fosters a deep love for making music and practicing.”

Lessons Offered: Piano

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Amy Frederick

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amy Frederick is a freelance musician who both plays and teaches piano, Hammond organ and keyboards. Ms. Frederick is a very active performer in the Nashville music scene. She can be found on stage with local and touring rock, r and b, blues and country/pop bands, and in the studio recording for independent artists. She has accompanied many local schools’ musicals and concerts, recitals at Belmont Academy (a division of Belmont University), and serves the Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church as pianist/organist. She has also played concerts with the Paducah Symphony and Orchestra Kentucky of Bowling Green, and currently teaches twenty-five up-and-coming student keyboardists. Ms. Frederick is a 2012 graduate of Belmont University where she earned a Master of Music in Piano Performance.

Lessons Offered: Piano

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Delores Hershey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delores Hershey has experience in both classical ensembles and mainstream/popular musical groups, performing a repertoire that has varied from Bach to the Eagles, becoming along the way one of today’s most intriguing performers. She brings world-class vocal and instrumental abilities to bear on a passionate performing style.

She began playing piano at 5 and violin at 7, and she and her family spent several years singing on weekends at area churches. Meanwhile, she was becoming an accomplished instrumentalist, playing the cello and earning superior ratings in statewide competitions on piano, tuba, and violin. She would go on to be part of the Jackson Youth Symphony, Pensacola College Orchestra, and later, the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra.  She began her college education at Pensacola Christian College in Florida, and then transferring and finishing her education at Spring Arbor College in Michigan. Graduating with a double major in piano performance and piano pedagogy, She and her husband moved to Tennessee, where she is currently the Music Director at Faith Church, a piano instructor at Belmont Academy, and is performing every week by playing the piano and singing at local, prestigious venues in Nashville.

Delores has been teaching piano for 14 years.  She brings to her teaching an energetic, well – rounded approach.  She teaches every student the good basics of music theory, ear training, and the classical style and technique.  All the while, introducing some popular mainstream music and styles, if the student prefers.  She is passionate to find the true talent that each student brings to piano music and helps them to grow into their full musical potential.

Mrs. Hershey is a member of the Music Teachers National Association and Nashville Area Music Teachers Association, which allows her to have her students perform in special performances and competitions each year.

Delores Hershey just, simply, loves to teach and invest herself to help push her students to greatness!

Lessons Offered: Piano

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Margarita Ivanova

Margarita Ivanova has thirty years of experience teaching professional musicians at the Music College in Ukraine. She has a European education with a PhD in Music History from I.P. Kotlyarevsky State University of the Arts in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The vast majority of her students have gone on to very fine conservatories and are now teaching either in Ukraine or one of the nations of the European Union.

Margarita’s system of training is the integrated process between areas of practical musical knowledge. Knowledge of musical styles and schools, and education of distinguished ear for music. Education and liberation of the musician, the maximum disclosure of its creativity and performance abilities for rather small term of training.

Margarita uses knowledge of harmony and practical harmonization, the composition of accompaniment, a basis of ensemble performance (the main thing governed, “I know, I hear, I play and I sing”); polyphonic technologies; applies composition and improvisation; choral technologies (approbation – experimental school of art education of G.I. Shatkovsky); adaptation and loan of elements of the French musical and pedagogical system “Formation musicale” (Course “FM” program, 1990, publishing house of National Federation of schools and municipal conservatories), alive pedagogic musical impromptus and musical styles, creation of diverse musical base.

Teaching in the United States has been Margarita’s dream for many years. She published several music related articles in Ukraine and Canada. Her science interest is devoted to the investigation of the genre poetics of a modern composer in the aspect of musical and literary genre regions. The principle of genre poetics was found as a result of her research and is called a genre paradox. Margarita also speaks 3 languages.

Lessons Offered: Piano

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Kristian Klefstad

Robert May is a singer and composer based in the Nashville area. Having lived in Manhattan up until summer of 2023, Robert’s performance experience has ranged from lending his voice to the off-Broadway show The Trial of Martin Luther in 2016, to performing his original songs in Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. Most recently, Robert had the pleasure of arranging and singing traditional spirituals alongside members of the New York City Ballet for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “MetLiveArts” series. He was also recently seen singing a small role in Martinů’s The Key of Dreams with the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall.

In addition to his solo work, Robert was also active in the professional choral scene in New York and has sung with top choral ensembles including the New York Virtuoso Singers, Pro Arte Singers, Bard Festival Chorale, and MasterVoices.

As a composer and arranger, Robert orchestrated music for a student-run production of Büchner’s play, Wozzeck, at The Juilliard School in 2015, and his barbershop quartet arrangement of “The Lusitania Went Down” was performed in the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission Ceremony at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City in April of 2017.

When Robert is not singing or composing, you can find him studying ancient Hebrew or exploring Nashville’s beautiful parks with his wife and three sons.

Lessons Offered: Piano

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Sonya Norman

 

 

 

 

Coming from a musical family, Sonya is a native Floridian and was born in Deland, Fl.  She started taking piano lessons at age five and was fortunate to receive her classical training through Eileen Stinson, the president of the Volusia County Private Teacher’s Music Association.  All through her elementary/secondary education, she attended recitals and performed in county and state competitions.  While in high school, she was the accompanist for a touring/singing group, The Modernaires. They received superior ratings in state and national music competitions.

After raising her family, as a single mother, she moved to Nashville, TN to pursue her teaching and musical career.  In May 2014, she graduated from Belmont University with a bachelor’s degree in Music Education, with honors. She was a licensed teacher for seven years with the following Endorsements: Vocal/General Music K-12. She has been a piano instructor at Belmont Academy since 2018, and loves working with children.

She has been teaching piano for over twenty years and loves to help out with Church Music Ministry.  She served as pianist for over 10 years at Woodbine Baptist Church, a ministry campus for Brentwood Baptist.  Playing keyboard with the Praise and Worship Team and accompanying the Children’s Choir was a favorite pastime of hers.  Currently, she attends McKendree United Methodist Church and loves to sing in the choir.   She also serves as guest pianist and helps with the Music Ministry Team.

Ongoing education and professional development is very important to her.  She was a member of the Middle Tennessee Orff Schulwerk Association and has her second Orff certification, which is a fun and entertaining musical approach to learning music. She enjoys going to workshops and gathering various musical resources to use in her teaching routine. Her goal is to create a positive learning environment by finding ways to connect with students on their level of development.

Lessons Offered: Piano