Suzuki Piano School of La Crosse

Teacher: Jack Wallace

Jack Wallace was born in 1952 and began playing the piano at the age of four. As a child, he studied classical music but also had a fondness for jazz and the music of his parents' generation, and he believes strongly in discovering which music speaks to a particular student. From high school, he went on to study the piano at the University of California at Los Angeles. In the 1970s he was a cafe pianist in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to a spiritual community near Grass Valley, California, where he was the resident piano player. While there he continued his studies and performed George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with the local symphony orchestra.

In 1986, he was introduced to the Suzuki Method and moved to Japan where he studied under Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, the method's founder, from 1987-1991. He then accepted a full-time two-year position at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin, before opening the Suzuki Piano School of La Crosse in the spring of 1993. To date he has taught some 24,000 half-hour lessons to an average enrollment of 65 semesterly students, pre-school to senior citizens (15% of his students are adult).

He has recorded two CDs of solo piano music ("My Romance" and "I Love a Piano") and in 2000-01 he presented a series of solo concerts at the Pump House Regional Arts Center. He is currently at work on a book about what he has learned, and after all these years still finds teaching a daily joy.