Hollie ThomasHollie Thomas is an award-winning composer, pianist, and educator dedicated to helping musicians deepen their musical understanding and chord prowess through creative play on the piano. Hollie's compositions have received several awards, most notablythe International League of Women Composers Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Award for her setting of Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." As a pianist, Hollie has performed worldwide in classical and modern chamber groups; for cabaret, theater, and dance; and as with eclectic pop/rock artists and bands including David Garza, the Kevin McCormick Ensemble, Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat, Deep Edward, The Jellydots, and Future Clouds & Radar. Hollie holds a Bachelor or Arts in Music Composition, studying composition with Dr. Michael Woods and Dr. Jerry Hatley; and studied classical piano performance in the studios of Dr. Betty Kirk, and Dr. Timothy Woolsey, and Hugh E. Thompson, Sr.Following a life-changing trip to Kiev, Ukraine in 1990, Hollie obtained her Masters of Education in the field of Linguistic Acquisition, and spent 10 years as an intensive English as a Second Language instructor and a curriculum developer for the English Language Center at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2003, Hollie made the decision to focus full-time on her private music teaching studio. Little did she imagine that her experience teaching language would exert a decisive influence, providing the vision for a piano teaching methodology which would more closely mirror language acquisition, crafted over the next two decades. Her teaching process transforms traditional technique teaching into a creative process that is fundamentally sourced from an understanding of harmony and composition. Read More Read Less