Don and Delayna Beattie
During the course of their careers, Don and Delayna Beattie have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands with their enthusiastic love of music and young people, gift for piano teaching and special devotion to Beethoven. Individually and together, they have appeared in music programs, performances and festivals in all fifty of the United States, Canada, Germany and Austria. Don is currently in his twenty ninth year as Director of Piano Pedagogy at the School of Music of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Delayna has enjoyed a twenty-five year professional career as an independent music teacher. They are parents of three children all currently engaged in undergraduate and graduate college studies.
Chris Salter, the founder and CEO of Music Wizard Group, studied with Don 25 years ago, and having no previous music education, dropped into a group piano class, and stayed for 4 years, ending up with a double degree in Music and Linguistics from SIU, and moving on to get his Master’s in Musicology from UCLA. Quite literally, Don’s teachings changed Chris Salter’s life, and led indirectly to him founding this method and company.
For the past eleven years, Don has served as Master of Ceremonies for the World Piano Pedagogy (the Art of Piano Teaching) Conference. He and Delayna have provided notable leadership for this Conference since 1994. In 1984, Don founded the Beethoven Society for Pianists that has captured international acclaim with hundreds of festivals that brought young pianists, teachers, communities and some of the greatest artists of our time together in new ways. Involved in local, state and national activities for the Music Teachers National Association since the outset of their careers, they recently showcased the Music Wizard Academy™ at the March 2007, Collaborative Conference of MTNA in Toronto, Canada.
Their "Beethoven Goes to School" music assembly program for school children has taken them from coast to coast. They have performed presentations for 5,000 children in Anchorage, and 4,000 children in Boston, highlighting this program. Don presented 200 piano teacher workshops as clinician for G. Henle music publishers. His published works with Edition HAS have been performed for US Presidents and audiences worldwide. Don and Delayna authored four volumes of the "Beethoven Library of Piano Works" for Warner Bros. and are recognized for significant contributions to teaching the early works and artistry of Beethoven. Their direction of a world premier performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 for piano ensemble and choir in Orlando, Florida in October 2001 captured the attention of President George Bush and colleagues worldwide. They remain active as performers and are frequent concert artists in Rochester, MN for events hosted by Mayo Clinic.
In the fall of 2005, they founded and now direct the Piano Wizard Academy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Their work as Academy Directors, and as authors of the Academy Music piano lessons for this acclaimed video game and teaching method, is opening new horizons for young children and adult beginners of piano. Don and Delayna authored a 100 Song Lesson Series that is now the "Academy Music Library" for the game. Music Wizard Academy and the Beatties have collaborated in the development of Tutorial DVD and Songbook lessons for the Academy Music Library.
Their outreach with Piano Wizard has led to new associations with Ronald McDonald Houses, home school programs, and the Albert Pujols Family Foundation in St. Louis. It has also generated appearances in front of national audiences in televised broadcasts and online teaching documentaries. They remain devoted to the immeasurable positive impact of music on the lives of people and especially on the hearts of children.
With their 2005 founding of Piano Wizard Academy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the Beatties are pioneering a completely new way to teach keyboard musicianship and the love of music. In Piano Wizard Academy, children, as young as age three, are so enthused about playing piano that their parents are astonished. It is an amazing thing to experience their children's newfound love of music and the piano.
