PianoCareerAcademy

About

Our Mission

We are a small team who dreams big: our mission is to make Conservatory-level piano teaching accessible to everyone. It is also to bring real music back into a world dominated by hurry and simplification, to dispel myths and offer the most complete, clear and transformative piano learning experience to our students.

What We Do

At PianoCareerAcademy, we help you to discover the true art of piano playing. In all our in-depth tutorials, we go behind the curtain and reveal professional secrets that are usually kept behind closed doors. We offer detailed solutions to all your piano problems and dilemmas - helping you to find joy, ease and fulfillment in your practice. Simply put, we make your playing come alive and shine!

Meet Our Team

Ilinca Vartic
CEO, Piano Teacher

Ilinca Vartic is the founder of PianoCareerAcademy, where she helps pianists of all ages and skill levels find excellence, balance and fulfillment in their piano practice.

Her own piano journey was adventurous and full of unexpected turns: born in the former USSR and trained to become a professional concert pianist from the age of 6, Ilinca never imagined that one day she would teach online, via video tutorials and courses!

And yet it happened - and her passion for languages, technology [and thinking outside the box] is to blame. In 2010, after 20 years of intense studies, almost 10 years of real-life teaching and hundreds of concerts performed, Ilinca realized that something was missing.

Guided by her passion for teaching (and her wide-ranging skillset), one day she took a leap of faith. 

Instead of continuing to follow the pre-charted academic path, Ilinca started a piano blog - PianoCareer.com. In English. She learned WordPress and discovered the magical world of cPanel and html.

At first, PianoCareer.com was about sharing her passion for a holistic lifestyle - something that was missing in the professional musical realm she grew up in. After a few months, however, her readers started to ask for video tutorials. They wanted to learn all the secrets of the Russian piano school, from scratch and in-depth!

Another leap of faith (and a new camera) later, Ilinca recorded her first video tutorial. The online dialogue that followed was amazing - and completely unexpected. Two years later (in February 2012), with the support of her wonderful subscribers, Ilinca launched PianoCareerAcademy.com.

In those early days, she had no idea how this adventure would pan out. So she simply focused on her students - creating many hundreds of detailed tutorials inspired by their questions and concerns.

Stand-alone videos and articles, step-by-step Courses, exciting interactive projects - the learning experience on PianoCareerAcademy keeps evolving together with the needs of its members.

Ilinca helps her students to discover the true art of piano playing. She empowers them to grow, excel, shine and find joy in every practice session.

In her tutorials, the East and the West form a harmonious symbiosis:
• on one hand, every student has the unique opportunity to go ‘behind the curtain’ and learn the secrets of the Russian piano school from the comfort of their own home;
• on the other hand, Ilinca makes this professional-level information easily accessible and fun!

Almost 1000 tutorials later, PCA is still the adventure of a lifetime - and YOU make it possible. It is your support, curiosity, love for music and passion for learning that allows our team to create unique resources designed to inspire and transform.

PCA is here for the long run - and the journey continues. Are you on board?

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And now, the necessary official details: Ilinca’s degrees and work experience.

1987-1999. At the age of 6, Ilinca started her professional piano journey by becoming a student of the Republican Musical Lyceum ‘Ciprian Porumbescu’ of Chisinau, Moldova. This Lyceum is a Russian-style specialized musical institution where in-depth musical studies are combined with the standard school curriculum. During the lyceum years, she studied piano with Lia Oxinoit (an amazing teacher who mentored many generations of wonderful pianists). 12 years later, she graduated the Lyceum first of her class (specialization Piano).

1999-2004. Later that year, Ilinca was accepted at the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts of Moldova. At the Academy, she studied with the renowned piano professor Ludmila Vaverco (a student of the legendary Bertha Reingbald, who also taught Emil Gilels). 5 years later, Ilinca graduated the Academy (again, first of her class) with the University degree of Bachelor of Music (specialization Piano).

2004-2006. After graduation, she entered the Masters program (at the same Academy). She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Musical Art (Piano Performance and Teaching).

Ilinca studied piano (professionally) for 19 years: 12 years of Lyceum, 5 years of Academy (University-level education) and 2 years of Masters (post-University degree). During her studying years, she participated in many hundreds of concerts - solo, in various ensembles (duets, trios, quartets, quintets), and also with symphony orchestras.

2005-2012. Simultaneously with her Masters studies, Ilinca started her ‘double’ work career: she became the piano soloist of the National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Moldova, and she also began teaching piano at the Academy.

The orchestra years were magical and very busy: the challenging audio and video recordings, the hundreds of live concerts and many exciting international tours have inspired Ilinca to think outside the box, polish her foreign languages and connect with the bigger world.

In 2005, for about 6 months, Ilinca hosted her own talk-show focused on classical music (at an independent radio station where she was also a broadcast technician).

During the pre-PCA years, she also occasionally worked as an English-Romanian-Russian interpreter at a translation agency.

Just like all roads lead to Rome - Ilinca’s multi-faceted experience led her to PianoCareerAcademy.

Since 2012, she focuses exclusively on PCA - where her work continues to be very diverse: from manager to piano teacher to video creator to graphic designer to website technician.

Passions: teaching, training, reading, personal development, languages, technology, travel, animals and nature.

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  • Simon Timms
    CTO, Operations Manager

    Simon and Ilinca have been life & business partners since 2012. Simon is the magician behind the scenes, the fixer, the guy who makes things happen. He manages everything from company administration to accounting to member registration to video editing.

    With an engineering background and a big passion for music, Simon is also a theory wizz (yes, he remembers his harmony lessons better than Ilinca!) and an invaluable advisor when it comes to the needs of Western music students.

    Simon loves drumming, tennis, nature & hiking. He is also a visionary, a long-term planner, and his unwavering perseverance is an inspiration for our entire team!

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  • Yuko Agata Farman
    Piano Teacher

    Yuko is our 'guardian angel' here at PCA - and we are lucky and blessed to have her in our team! A passionate and experienced piano teacher who has also been studying the Russian method since 2012, Yuko runs our interactive 'PCA Stage' project. She offers detailed feedback to your video recordings - monitoring your progress and making sure that you are on the right track in applying everything you learn from our tutorials.

    Thanks to Yuko, you can now benefit from individual guidance on top of everything else the PCA membership has to offer - for a truly holistic and complete piano training.

    And now - a few details from Yuko’s professional journey:

    Although playing the piano since childhood, Yuko's career as a piano instructor didn't start until much later. She went back to school and obtained a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Christopher Newport University (Newport News, Virginia, USA) as an adult while raising three small children. During school years, she suffered from arm injury owing to intense piano practice, which led her to research the cause of injury even after graduating from school. 

    She found the definite solution by meeting Ilinca Vartic (and joining PCA) in 2012. Since then, Yuko's way of perceiving the piano drastically changed course.  Consequently, it became her mission to pass Ilinca's teachings, which are based on the Russian piano school, down to her own piano students. 

    Yuko's mission expanded to teaching Japanese piano instructors when she translated the method books for children based on the Russian piano school, "Tales of a Musical Journey" by Irina Gorin into Japanese language.  (Book 1 & 2 and "Handbook for teachers", self-published by the author).  Yuko has conducted many seminars to introduce the method books to Japanese teachers. Between 2017 and 2019, she has taught more than 200 piano teachers through her seminars and sold about 1,000 books on her own. At the same time, Yuko continues to inspire piano teachers around the world to disseminate the correct method of piano playing with Irina Gorin.

    Aside from conducting seminars, Yuko obtained a performance diploma from ABRSM (DipABRSM), Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, in 2018 as part of her commitment in piano study. She also holds the title of NCTM, Nationally Certified Teacher of Music in Piano, through the Music Teacher's National Association in USA.

    Yuko's three children are all grown, and she recently moved from Japan to Virginia, USA with her husband and a chocolate Labrador retriever, Mocha.

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  • Natalia Topala
    Customer Support

    With a Major in English and a passion for problem-solving, Natalia provides superhero-level support to all our members (and anyone who wishes to learn more about PCA). Whether you contact us via email, Facebook (or send us a raven) - Natalia will receive your message and get back to you with a helpful solution!

    Her motto: ‘Giving while living’.

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  • Prof. Nessy
    Provider of Joy and Fur

    Professor Vanessa Munch-kevich Fluffy-Cheeks joined the PCA Team in late December of 2018.  Since then she has provided a lot more fur than required (literally - A LOT OF FUR!!!).  Professor Munch-kevich holds multiple Masters Degrees in the Art of Zen and likes to teach by example.  When it comes to relaxation she is an inspiration and a role model, constantly demonstrating how to "chillax" or "take it easy".

    Nevertheless, even with all the relaxing, she still finds the time to do all of her work.  She is very dependable, always there to offer support (and fur) when another team member has had a tough day.

    Outside of PCA, Nessy loves mice, birds, staring out the window romantically, and racing around the house like a crazy little horse, and also spends a lot of her time taking long naps.

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