Who’s Who at the Center for Young Musicians: Simmi Tripathi

Ms. Simmi Tripathi

A new school year will mean fresh faces at the Center for Young Musicians! We are excited to announce that new teachers for piano, cello and guitar will be joining the CYM family, bringing unique experiences and solid training in music education. And as always, we happily look forward to greeting new students and their families.

To help everyone get to know each other a little better, we’ll be posting short bios on all the CYM teachers and staff.  First, we introduce you to Simmi Tripathi, who joins CYM as a Piano Teacher.

Simmi Tripathi, pianist (M.M. Cleveland Institute of Music), is a native of Houston,TX and began studying piano at the age of seven. After attending the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, she received a B.M. in piano performance at the University of Houston where she studied with Ruth Tomfohrde.  She has performed in the International Piano Festival in Texas and the Schlern International Music Festival in Völs am Schlern, Italy. At the Cleveland Institute of Music where Simmi earned a Master of Music, she studied with Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscioni. During this time, Simmi was a featured pianist in The Indian American magazine (January 2008). 

Following her years in Cleveland, Simmi completed two years of Doctoral studies in piano performance at the University of California, Santa Barbara, studying under Dr. Charles Asche, as well as chamber music studies with collaborative pianist, Robert Koenig, flutist, Jill Felber, and violist, Helen Callus. She also performed regularly throughout the Santa Barbara and Montecito areas, and in February 2010, one of her performances was featured on a local Santa Barbara radio station, 93.7 KDB. 

Simmi has had nine years of piano teaching experience at various music schools in Houston, TX and Cleveland, OH. Simmi will be teaching Piano in the Classical and American Legends programs, as well as Literacy, Classical and Legends group classes. 

Q & A with CYM:

 CYM: What is your teaching style? 

Ms. Simmi:  Over the past nine years, I have worked with students of all ages, combining training in music theory, aural skills, piano technique, and musicianship into their lessons. My goal is to encourage and inspire my students to discover all of the fascinating and exciting aspects of music-making and impart a skill-set in them that they will be able to carry on for years to come. 

 CYM: What is your approach to the hardest problems that music students face?  

Ms. Simmi: Speaking specifically about piano, one of the biggest difficulties I see in my students lies in the memorization of their pieces – it is, no doubt, a challenging process but once a student can recognize chords, harmonies, and musical patterns and can analyze their music intellectually, it becomes a much more accessible process. This is one of the main reasons I emphasize music theory so much in my teaching.  

Generally speaking, in music lessons I feel that students struggle with making mistakes and are overcome by their need to be perfect or error-free all of the time. Performing in front of their peers as often as possible is one way to help with this common issue – often it helps to perform pieces at various stages during the learning process; this helps students understand how to learn from mistakes that are made. 

 CYM: What is your favorite kind of music to listen to for fun?  

Ms. Simmi: There’s a variety of styles of music I like to listen to – besides classical music, I enjoy listening to rock, folk, and jazz. When I’m not teaching or practicing, I feel like I need to have some kind of music playing nearby at all times. I really love going to concerts and listening to live music. 

CYM Note: Yes, Ms. Simmi is sister to Ms. Sonia Tripathi!

Please introduce yourself to Ms. Simmi when you see her this Fall!