During our initial visit, whether for piano, voice, or other skill, I shall demonstrate a few things that we could do together. It is then up to the person to decide for him/herself if we are suited to each other. None of us are born knowing how to practice. I provide a detailed routine for you as an individual, a protocol to help you develop your abilities. You would bring a video camera--or a least a tape recorder--to record our time together and replay/retake the lesson you have just had!

I joined The National Association of Teachers of Singing in 2006. Within my first year, at the most recent (2007) Singing Festival, one of my students took the first prize in one division (Music Theater) and the second prize in another (Art Song)! I am available for vocal coaching. One of my 11 year old students, won the only SUPERIOR rating in Voice at the Sonoma State California Music Educators Adjudication Festival in 2006, beating all the junior and senior high school students.

I am available as an accompanist in all genres: voice or instrument Within the past two years I have accompanied all voices, choruses, clarinet and other woodwinds, trombone and other brass, and all the string instruments, in concerts, for practice, for recordings. - Kenn 'Maestro G' Gartner

A consummate artiste, Kenn 'Maestro G' Gartner is a performer, piano, voice, musical coach, vocalist and pianist professionally active in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California.

Among many things he has been the Chairman of the Music Department, Five Towns College, Dix Hills, Long Island, conductor of the United Choral Society and other adult and teenage choruses. Speaking French, German, Korean and Japanese in effect, Kenneth Gartner teaches students of all ages.

In addition to teaching, Dr. Gartner does vocal and instrumental coaching for competitions, entrance exams, roles and performances.

He has and is a Musical Director of shows, opera and operetta as well as a choral and orchestral conductor.

Other areas of teaching expertise are voice, composition, electronic music and synthesizer. His PhD on expanded piano technique, allows him to assert (and demonstrate) that "I can improve anyone's technique in a matter of weeks!"

Yet his greatest successes have been and are in preparing musical contest winners (including admissions exams to specialized musical institutions).

Note prepared by a former student,
Horace Greeley Junior High School, Class of 1968:

Dr. Gartner's exceptional abilities with choruses (the clarity of diction and balance achieved with choruses of 200+ students) and children of junior high school age and older, are evident in the following musical clips:
• two from movement II of Johannes Brahms's German Requiem, and
• one from movement V (9th grader Helen Pelligrini is the soprano)..

While the orchestra was largely Queens College players, outstanding JHS 10 students such as Gregory Durniak (fourth horn) were also involved. Joel Kolk, band teacher at 10, and Michael Feldman, son of Principal Herman Feldman (JHS 10), were the clarinets. Even Dr. Gartner's mother played viola for us! The entire Requiem was memorized by the students, a work followed two years later by Mendelssohn's Elijah! This is but a taste of what may be done by children (and adults) with the encouragement of an outstanding musician such as Dr. Gartner.

Here is also Deems Taylor's arrangement of the Czechoslovakian folk song, Tece Voda, Tece! conducted by Dr. Gartner from the piano and sung in the original language. The male soloist was an eighth grader! This work is an example of what may be done with the young, adolescent voice given correct treatment and instruction.

Yet another example is the "Ave Verum Corpus" recorded by the Flushing High School Chorus in 1997, under his direction. The clip of Mozart's penultimate work, the Ave Verum, was recorded in Flushing High School's landmark auditorium--a reproduction of Shakespeare's theater--where Dr. Gartner taught both chorus and orchestra. It was sung antiphonally, with the Honors Chorus stationed in the two balconies above the instrumental ensemble. This was part of a concert in which the student demanded to perform Mozart's ultimate work, the Requiem.

Reviews