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M.Y. TEAM
The Maddalena-Yu pedagogic team came together at Roberto and Jennifer's musical encounter at Mozarteum of Salzburg, Austria, in 1997. Further than their shared love for music, Jennifer and Roberto also discovered many common goals in their teaching such as cultivation of musical understanding, value of cultural exposure, invaluable experience of human interaction, and development of ability to listen, logical reasoning, patience, and perseverance in each individual.
Jennifer Yu and Roberto Maddalena
Jennifer Yu and Roberto Maddalena
with students
The M.Y. collaboration enables students to receive stimulation and inputs from 2 different teachers with similar musical and learning goals. It allows both teachers the opportunities to observe students' learning needs from different perspectives, exchange and enrich their teaching tools, and offer a wider variety of learning strategies to pupils.
Roberto Maddalena
Composition, Piano, Improvisation, Musicianship
Maestro of piano and composition from Naples and Potenza Conservatories, Italy. Principal teachers include Anna Maria Pennella (piano), Boris Bekhterev (piano), Bruno Mazzotta (composition), and Giacomo Manzoni (composition). Further piano studies with Joaquín Achucarro, Lazar Berman, Bruno Canino, Sergio Perticaroli, and Tamás Vásáry. Highly acclaimed recitalist of solo and chamber music in Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland. A Professor of Piano, Chamber Music, and Composition at the Conservatories of Ponta Delgada and Leiria in Portugal from 1997 to 2011. From 2011 to this day, Roberto is co-owner of Suono Music Studio in Richmond Hill and gives in-person and online instruction of piano, musicianship, theory, composition, and music history. He worked as the improvisation and composition consultant at Children's Piano Pedagogy Program at Faculty of Music, University of Toronto between 2011 and 2016. Since 2018, Roberto has developed an 108-hour interactive online curriculum for comprehensive musicianship, improvisation, and composition, which he co-teaches with Dr. Jennifer Yu at Muses Academy, an international education platform. Also, his European pedagogic projects brought Asian students to Italy for in-depth cultural and musical exchange from 2018 to 2023. For over two decades, Roberto has been much sought after as an adjudicator in piano competitions across Portugal, Italy, and Canada.
Jennifer Yu
Piano, Pedagogy, Musicianship
Doctor of Musical Arts from University of Toronto. Principal teachers include Lynda Metelsky (piano) at Royal Conservatory of Toronto, Germaine Mounier (piano) at École Normale de Musique de Paris in France, Marietta Orlov (piano) at University of Toronto, Boris B. Bekhterev (piano) in Italy, as well as Serge Blanc (chamber music) at École Normale de Musique de Paris and Cameron Stowe (collaborative piano) at University of Toronto. Widely praised recitalist of solo and collaborative piano in Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Portugal, Taiwan, and USA.
Together with Roberto Maddalena, Jennifer Yu has applied principles of Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory to develop a comprehensive curriculum of beginners’ musicianship and piano study, which they have been refining and teaching since 2011. Jennifer is a member of Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association, co-owner of Suono Music Studio in Richmond Hill, faculty member of the Children's Piano Pedagogy Program at UofT from 2005 to 2016, and instructor of undergraduate piano pedagogy from 2015 to 2016 at Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. From January, 2018 to 2024, Jennifer Yu has also been teaching online courses in comprehensive musicianship and composition with Roberto Maddalena at Muses Academy, China.
