Private Lessons with June
June
Background: Born in Xi’an, China and currently residing in Tucson, Arizona, Zhujun (June) began her piano training at the age 4 under the influence of her father, a well‐known composer based in China. Zhujun (June) was trained as a classical piano performer for 15 years and had performed in many professional piano concerts. She transitioned to composition in the last year of high school and pursued a Bachelor’s Degree in composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of music. During the time when she was in college, she continued her piano lessons within the conservatory. Zhujun (June) had her first piano student at age of 16 and continued to teach piano throughout the entire college. She has many experiences working with various age groups of both kids and adults, from beginners to professional level piano players. After graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Zhujun traveled to the United States and pursued a Master's degree in composition at the Peabody Conservatory of music, Johns Hopkins University. At Peabody, Zhujun (June)'s compositions were well acclaimed and led to the Gustav Klem Award for her excellence in composition. After being awarded a full scholarship for Graduate Teaching Assistantship in music theory, Zhujun (June) has been pursuing her Doctoral degree in composition at Peabody Conservatory till now. Throughout the entire journey of composition, Zhujun (June) has been practicing and utilizing piano as one of the most important tools for her own compositional creation as well as keyboard improvisation. Besides composing, Zhujun (June) is currently teaching her 4‐year‐old son piano lessons at home.
Teaching approach: I consider music is such an important part of our lives that positively connect ourselves with others. It provides unique and creative perspective to learn the world. With that in mind, I believe that maintaining one’s inner drive is the core value of my teaching approach.
In order to protect and maintain one’s inner drive for music, I like to make tailored plans based on each individual’s needs and interests to help them reach their goals. Different ages require different motivations. I want all of my students feel valued and respected when work with me. I consider myself as an encouraging, patient, communicative, and goal‐oriented person. I like to build trusting relationships with my students through positive attitude and verbal encouragement, even during the tough moments. I love to be communicative with both parents and students because I want to make sure that we are always working as a team to accomplish the same goal. Piano learning requires time and effort, and sometimes the practice can be tedious. But I promise that with patience and drive, everybody will eventually get to where they want to be. I like to frequently remind the students about their goals to give them some ideas about how much they’ve achieved and how long they still need to go. I believe that we all get more motivated through tangible and quantified feedback and results. All in all, I love to participant the process in which the students are learning, growing and enjoying the moment when they are making music. That truly brings me happiness and sense of achievement.
10 Fun facts about me:
1. I love toy poodles and own a black one. She is the best.
2. I hate ALL the bugs.
3. Besides being a musician, another dream of mine is to be a dinosaurologist (long time ago).
4. My favorite animal is lion and I love watching documentaries about them.
5. I am really good at baking breads and cooking.
6. My husband is a scientist working with bats so I get to go out to the wild to see and catch bats many times.
7. I laugh really loudly.
8. My lowest resting heart rate is 48.
9. I am good at singing Chinese pop songs, and sometimes compose one.
10. I have 100,000+ followers on social media as a fitness influencer.