About
The First Note
Viva Musica has been serving the Calgary community since 2006. We are proud to received a dedicated designation 2023 from STEINWAY Piano - the first STEINWAY SELCTED STUDIO in Calgary. We specialize in group music education in piano, and strings: violin, cello, guitar and harp as well as providing customized private lessons, catering to individual students and family needs.
Our goal is to provide a complete musicianship and instrumental learning while nurturing our students to apply their music training to their personal growth, development and their everyday life as a whole.
We are partnered with the Global Music Arts Competition (GMAC) and European String Teachers Association (ESTA Education UK), and encourage our students to go beyond Canada’s borders and discover musical opportunities in the wider world internationally.
Teach In Harmony Holistically
Following our holistic concept in Music Education, we believe that students learn best using an approach where students can create a strong foundation in music, such as areas of performance, ensemble playing, ear training, sightreading, theory and other aspects of musicianship. Our own European artistic inspired pedagogy approach - MuseKids Musica Program Curriculum, and Music for Young Children Program contains elements to cover various music disciplines using our complete education pedagogy concept.
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Musekids Musica Early Childhood
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Baby Playdate Musica Class
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MuseKids Musica Private Piano Program following RCM or ABRSM
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Music for Young Children Sunrise & Core Piano Group Program
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Musekids Musica Group/ Private
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Violin Program, with associated Violin Friends Program
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Musekids Musica Practical Theory Class
We also have complex pedagogy concepts tailored to individual students' needs. Our association with the GMAC honor program also nurtures students' musical study goals.
Detailed curriculum websites: www.musekids.ca and www.myc.com
The Music Foundation
Students are not just learning how to play a few music pieces here at our academy. Our holistic approach nurtures our young ones to become proficient in music playing, performing, application theory and musicianship. Our teachers are directly coached by our founder Ms. Jessica Yuen, with continuous professional development throughout the year. Senior teachers are qualified with:
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RCM certified teachers or musicians
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MYC certified teachers
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Post-graduate music degree/diploma
Junior teachers are graduated music students who are continuing their teaching specialist studies via the RCM Canada teacher certification or University PD program in the UK.
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Our Group Piano teachers are all MYC level certified and mentored individually by Ms. Jessica.
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Adult learners are welcome, at any age or level, given that you have the love for appreciating and creating music!
Founder’s Notes
I remember when I was 5 and half years old, I walked across my very first stage performing my first song; it was called Step by step, E D C, C C C, C C C C C".........,
It was less than 10 sec. Moreover, then for my very first competition, at eight years old, playing Beethoven's Fur Elise. As I get older and older, it gets scarier and scarier to perform on stage since the fearlessness diminishes as the years go by and realizing the audiences, the crowd, is there watching.
I remember, it was until I was in Junior high, where I was the piano accompanist for the school choir. We had performances roughly every six weeks, with 3 of them in the year, at the Jubilee auditorium, with over 2500 seats in these concerts.
The pressure from knowing there are people in the dark audience area, the spotlight shining on me, and the stage rising from the orchestra pit and then really appearing on stage, allowed me to gain more and more stage performing experiences when I was a teenager.
My teachers told me, the importance of having quality music instruments, opportunities to perform in front of a crowd, and experiences to perform in a formal concert hall with perfectly balanced acoustics, are all essential elements for developing the musician that we all want to be.
There we are, in one of Calgary's professional musician's stage, Engineered Air Theater in the Arts common. It is my mission to seek the perfect balance opportunity for our students to enjoy what it feels like to walk across the stage like a pro. It might be a little bit nerve wrecking at first, but I can ensure you, sooner or later, just like myself performed my very first solo concert at the Jack Singer concert hall, couple doors down. Back in 1998. I can still remember the feeling of owning the stage and don't want to leave. Since then, I have decided my lifelong partnership with music education, inspiring the younger generations about music and musical performances.
Besides having quality instruments to practice, opportunities to perform and train our ears, it is also important to have proper techniques for building the foundation. My specialization in group music education focuses myself on training my colleague teachers to provide a complete holistic approach to develop young musicians. We like to use music as a tool, to inspire and empower our students to enhance their growth and development as a whole. We do not need everyone to become professional pianist or violinist when they grow up, but our wish is to have future members of the community who will appreciate the joy of music, the joy of understanding life using the ideology behind routine practices, goal setting, and achievement, etc.
My music pedagogy concept includes more than just teaching our students how to play a few songs or beautiful sounding music pieces. In the past year, as many of you know, I had performed in numerous concerts with various groups of musicians. I had also traveled a whole lot to meet with musicians who share the same music pedagogy concept as me, in Calgary, Europe, and Asia. From my experiences of performing on various stages and adjudicating music festivals, I have come to known the importance of building technique using theory, scales, studies, and musicianship training from a very young foundation stage. Using my European-inspired methodology, I have recently created MuseKids Musica, as a curriculum to cover areas besides our Music for Young children programs, such as our private piano program, group/private violin program and group musicianship/theory classes.
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The change of Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music syllabus last year is also one of the reasons for me to create our MuseKids Musica curriculum. The trend of music education is here for us to provide a complete musicianship experience, where students can practically understand the theory behind their everyday music practice, creating a life skill that they can own it for life. As a music teacher, we also partner with parents like yourself in the audience. We are all proud supporters of our young ones to create their unique musical experience. There might be much nagging, reminding or repeating the words "its time for your music practice!" at home, but no matter what, we are here today to celebrate our students' hard work for the entire year.
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Everyone had worked so hard to perform on this stage today. I hope parents would enjoy seeing their young ones walking across this stage proudly, cheering them on. For students, soak in this proud moment under the spotlight, because this is a unique opportunity where you can own this stage.
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Jessica Yuen, PhD(c)music, MBA, MRes, Pg Dipl. (Strings),BA, MYCC
~Principal Opening Speech at Year End Recital June 11, 2017,
Engineered Air Theater, Arts Common, Calgary Alberta, Canada