Tricia Thomson studied with Brazilian Pianist, Ney Salgado. She holds a master’s degree in Piano performance from New York University, a masters degree in film production from York University in Toronto, and also holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore Maryland, The Catholic University in Washington D.C. and the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna, Austria. She is currently director of the Ohio Conservatory, where she teaches more than 100 students a week, using innovative and highly successful teaching methods honed over 20 years of teaching in Toronto, New York City, and Akron, Ohio.

Tricia has also been a filmmaker since 1981. She has directed, assistant directed and edited ½ hour dramas, documentaries and feature films. In the 1980’s in New York City she also managed several classical artists and consequently became familiar with design and publicity aspects of the business. For 1 and ½ years she worked at Ursus Books in Manhattan, a store specializing in rare art books and thereby gained a better knowledge of art and art history.

Working with children, both as a filmmaker and as a teacher, Tricia has discovered a remarkable fact-that children are capable of more than people imagine. The average child can do, understand, and appreciate quite extraordinary things. Although great art of any kind requires mastery, it is, nevertheless, accessible to anyone who is exposed to it-not because it is easy-but because it speaks to the heart and to the mind. It makes us feel human, and it provides experience that lifts us beyond ourselves. Tricia believes that the arts are necessary to a culture: they are its spiritual and intellectual nourishment. Both the ordinary and the gifted possess genius. Sometimes genius lies in the ability to create-more often it lies in the ability to experience. Tricia is dedicated to giving students both skills and experiences.