Local piano teacher honored in Steinway Teachers Hall of Fame

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame is a prestigious recognition for the nation’s most dedicated and ionate piano educators.

Every two years, teachers are chosen from the United States and Canada.

Local piano teacher, Cindy Wilkinson, just got back from Queens, N.Y. where she and 37 piano educators were honored.

She can now add “Hall of Fame Honoree” to her long list of accomplishments.

“I had no idea. So it was a breathtaking surprise,” said Wilkinson.

Sponsored by local piano shop, Turner’s Keyboards, she and the other honorees were each given certificates with their names on them and were given a tour.

“It was amazing. Two days. Just a whirlwind. Wonderful to meet all the other inductees and their sponsors from their stores around the country,” she said.

She says she feels blessed to still be doing what she’s loved since she was 7 years old.

Now, she’s impacting the lives of the students she teaches every day.

“I had a very young student who struggled with attention span and was having some difficulty at school. We were able to, over the course of a year, work through a lot of his issues through music and help him find a creative outlet for some of his unused energy, something that was productive for him. And because of the confidence he developed through his music, he found that he could apply those same things in school, and he ended up getting over that hump and succeeding in school,” she said.

While her name is listed in the Hall of Fame, she says she’s just a representative for all of the great piano teachers in Augusta.

“I receive it as a sweet gift and an opportunity to speak for music educators everywhere, especially in this area,” she said.

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