Budding Mozarts Blossom at The Piano Key

Twelve-year old Kyle Rendon, wearing jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and a small grin, sits down at the piano and begins to play the Harry Potter theme music.

“I’ve been, in the past, listening to my best friend,” Rendon says. “He plays piano. I’ve been listening to all his songs and I’m like, ‘Man, I really would like to play.’”

For the past year and a half Rendon has been taking piano lessons at with teacher and co-owner Greg Moses. Moses opened The Piano Key in 2009 with his own former piano teacher, Melissa Grossi. At the time Grossi owned “Melissa’s Piano Studio” and had been teaching for more than twenty years.

Both Grossi and Moses are members of the American College of Musicians and belong to NEPTA, the New England Piano Teacher Association. They, along with other teachers at The Piano Key, now instruct approximately 125 students from ages 4 to 80, in both piano and guitar lessons.

The Piano Key’s motto is “Unlocking the door to a lifetime of musical enjoyment.” Though the folks there teach in a classical style, they aren’t stuffy.

“We try to make it motivational,” said administrator Kristen Guy-Moses, “not this old-fashioned ‘do your scales’ type of thing.” 

Among the programs offered at the studio are “Music for Little Mozarts,” where 4 to 6 year-olds first use puppets to “tickle the ivories,” and “Key Sessions” in which children, ages 7+, join together once a month to eat pizza, listen to each other play, and critique one another’s work. Both Grossi and Moses also work with special needs students, such as those with Alzheimer’s or autism.

Twice a year students are given the opportunity to perform in recitals at Providence’s Music Mansion if they choose. The Piano Key also sponsors students on national Piano Guild auditions, which, according to Guy-Moses, can enable high school students to get college credit and “kind of makes piano playing ‘official’ instead of a hobby.”

After just a year and a half Kyle Rendon will be auditioning for the Piano Guild in June.  Undoubtedly, his teacher has a lot of do with it.

“He’s patient and has a good sense of humor.”