MEET OUR TEACHERS
Lynda Lybeck-Robinson, NCTM
Location: Unalaska / Aleutian Islands
Lynda Lybeck-Robinson, NCTM, is a graduate of Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, with a diverse performing career. An Up With People alum (‘82), she has traveled internationally as a pianist and singer and performed throughout Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.
In 1996, Lynda arrived in Unalaska for a 10-week performing contract but ultimately made the Aleutian Islands her home. During her first two years, she founded the region’s first professional piano studio at the community center. She returned in 2002 and has remained in Unalaska ever since, continuing to teach piano and build a thriving studio community.
She teaches beginner through early advanced students, serving local Unalaska families and remote village students through online instruction. Her students regularly participate in NFMC Festivals and online adjudications through the Kenai Central Peninsula Music Teachers.
Lynda is also a published composer with over 50 works through Hal Leonard Corporation, including Williwaw and Alaska Sketches. Several compositions have been selected for the NFMC Festival Bulletin, including Williwaw and Cowboy World.
Contact Email:
aleutianlifestudios@gmail.com
Mark Weathers, NCTM
Location: Soldotna / Kenai Peninsula,
Mark Weathers, NCTM, is a classical piano teacher based in Soldotna, Alaska, serving students throughout the Central Kenai Peninsula and online. He teaches pre-college students from beginner through early advanced levels, emphasizing healthy, efficient technique, strong musicianship, and a solid foundation in music theory.
Mark's technical teaching is informed by training in the Taubman Approach, emphasizing healthy, efficient, and free movement at the piano. He also incorporates principles of the Russian piano school, with attention to tone production, musical expression, and technical facility.
Mark believes in a balanced approach to repertoire, combining the study of historically significant piano literature with modern pedagogical and contemporary works. This allows students to experience the depth and tradition of the classical repertoire while benefiting from the variety, creativity, and educational strengths of today's composers.
Students have opportunities to participate in recitals, festivals, adjudications, and other performance experiences throughout the year, developing confidence, musical independence, and well-rounded performance skills.
Mark has completed advanced teacher training through the Gorin Institute (Levels 1–3) and Piano Safari Teacher Training (Levels 1–3). He also serves on the boards of the Anchorage Keyboard Teachers Association and the Alaska Music Teachers Association.
Geri Brigham
Location: Nikiski/Kenai Peninsula
Geri Brigham began her career in Denver, Colorado where she received her degree in music from Metropolitan State University. She enjoys playing and teaching several instruments, yet her specialized training is piano. Geri has been a resident of Nikiski, Alaska for 39 years. She has served as the treasurer for KCPMT since its inception in 2019.
Contact Email:
Maria Allison
Location: Kenai/Kenai Peninsula
Maria Allison holds both a Bachelor in Music Education and Master’s degree in Music from the University of Nebraska. A Kenai resident for over 45 years, she has been an active member of the local music community performing as a soloist, orchestral pianist, accompanist for schools and community events, and collaborative artist.
Contact Email:
Annika Hagedorn
Location: Soldotna / Kenai Peninsula
Annika Hagedorn is the owner of Annika’s Music Studio, located inside The Music Corner on K-Beach Road in the Kenai Peninsula, which she co-owns with her husband. With over five years of teaching experience, she teaches a full studio of 60 students and is known for creating a positive, engaging, and supportive learning environment.
Contact Email:
Karen Wright
Location: Seward/Kenai Peninsula
Karen Wright has been playing piano for 31 years and teaching for over 15 of those. With a B.S. in Piano Performance from Corban University in Salem, Oregon and an M.A. in Music from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, she has studied with Prof. John Bartsch, Prof. Peggy Dougherty, and Dr. Susan Chan.
Her graduate presentation at Portland State was focused on Spanish influences in French Impressionistic composers. She has extensive vocal and instrumental accompanying experience at the collegiate level, and has provided music for countless weddings and church services. Her most extreme piano experience was playing keys in a band at Icestock, a music festival in Antarctica.
She is currently teaching a full roster of students in Seward, Alaska.
Jonathan Bruxvoort
Location: Soldotna/Kenai Peninsula
Jonathan Bruxvoort lives in the central Kenai peninsula where he studied piano for 10 years. Now with over 20 years of experience on the piano he has started Ivory Excellence Piano Studio and finds great enjoyment in encouraging and helping students to develop their abilities. He focuses on connecting with each student individually to find what will best help them advance their music. His studio branches into many styles of music while his focus remains rooted in the classics.
Jonathan believes basic techniques and musical principles are the foundations for effective musical development and the key to appreciating and enjoying music fully. He teaches beginner to early advanced levels, encouraging students at every level to enjoy what they do and strive for excellence.
Contact Email:
Freya Wardlaw-Bailey
Location: Anchorage/Midtown
Freya Wardlaw-Bailey is a lifelong Alaskan who began piano lessons at age six on an old spinet piano in her family’s cabin. Her most influential teacher was Svetlana Velitchko, a former professor at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She holds a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and education from the University of Alaska Anchorage (2003) and a Master of Music in piano accompanying from the University of Oregon (2007), where she studied with David Riley, Claire Wachter, and Alexandre Dossin.
She began teaching piano in 1999 and currently works with 30 students of all ages and levels. Her teaching focuses on classical repertoire and strong technical foundations, with an emphasis on natural movement, balance, and individualized instruction. She encourages regular performance through recitals, adjudications, festivals, and competitions.
Alongside teaching, Freya is an active accompanist and chamber musician. She coaches students in recital and competition preparation and serves as pianist, organist, and choir accompanist for traditional services at St. John United Methodist Church, where she has worked since 2007. She has also served on the board of the Anchorage Keyboard Teachers Association since 2008.
Contact Email:
freyapiano@gmail.com
Stacie Werner
Location: Seward/Kenai Peninsula
Stacie Werner has been loving and teaching piano since high school for over 40 years. She holds a Bachelors in Elementary / Junior High Education with a minor in piano performance. She also offers beginning private flute lessons, guitar and ukulele classes—in addition to her approximate 20 piano students. She also has summer music camp and classroom experience.
Stacie enjoys working with a variety of instruments but her “forte” is piano; accompanying solos and small groups, church congregation, and other instrumentalists. She has experience in recording studios and incorporates “orchestration”, arranging and composition with GarageBand software in her students’ private lessons. Improvisation and incorporating chords are her favorite parts of the already rich classical base of her studio lessons; while strongly incorporating scales, arpeggios, chord implementation and theory. Her students have been an active part of NFMC and they have proudly acquired many trophies and a number of different events.
Stacie loves spending time with her husband, children, mother and grandchildren! Fishing, sewing, and anything artsy are her hobbies. In addition, viewing whales, Denali and the Aurora Borealis are her favorite past-times.
Contact Email:
Michèle Floyd
Location: Soldotna / Kenai Peninsula
Michèle Floyd fell in love with music at the age of five. She began singing with her family as a toddler and joined a private choir at age five, where she learned to make music with others, build harmonies, and read music while also learning to read her ABCs. These early experiences shaped a lifelong connection to music and ensemble performance.
Her passion for teaching was sparked by her high school piano teacher and has remained a defining part of her musical journey ever since. She began volunteer teaching during high school and college, working with friends and continuing to support the private choir that had been central to her early musical development.
Michèle holds a Bachelor of Science in Piano Performance and brings that training into both her teaching and musicianship. In 2003–2004, she served as the music teacher at Kalifonsky Christian School, where she discovered the deep rewards of teaching music in a classroom setting. She continues to share her love of music through teaching, with a focus on helping students grow in confidence, skill, and joy at the piano.
Autumn Laemmrich
Location: Anchorage/South
Autumn Laemmrich holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, where she studied with pianist and instructor Dr. Raffi Besalyan. She began teaching in her home state of Wisconsin in 2008 and relocated to Alaska in 2011.
She is the owner and instructor of Mountain Sound Piano Studio, located in South Anchorage, where she teaches students a full studio of all ages and levels. Her teaching focuses on classical piano, emphasizing the traditional style of learning through method books, later transitioning to standard repertoire. She also caters to students’ individual interests as they develop their skills at the piano. Autumn is a certified Ultimate Music Theory instructor, offering private theory lessons and group theory clubs, which help create a stronger sense of community within her studio.
She currently serves on the boards of the Anchorage Keyboard Teachers Association as well as the Alaska Music Teachers Association.
Contact Email:
Carol Dunfee
Location: Anchorage/East
Dunfee School of Music strives for excellence and mastery at each level of music instruction, incorporating duets, chord charts, and ear training. Students have a distinct, polished sound that comes from a unique approach. Each student masters a level before being promoted to the next.
While new music is added most weeks, review songs remain in students’ practice repertoire for weeks after competency is achieved. These review songs become like “old friends,” making practice more pleasant and balancing the mental effort required to learn each week’s new material. The result is beautiful, fluid playing that brings pleasure to both the listener and the performer.
In addition to traditional classical piano, Dunfee School of Music also teaches music theory, music history, and improvisation with popular music. DSM’s goal is to produce well-rounded musicians who can read, improvise, and play by ear.
Students participate in recitals, Piano Guild, and other local music activities.
Carol has been teaching professionally since 1996. She studied with concert pianists Daisy DeLuca Jaffe and Daniel Nagy and holds a Master’s degree in Music and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education and Math Education
Contact Email:
Lisa McLaughlin
Location: Anchorage/South
Melissa Karrigan
Location: Homer/Kenai Peninsula
Melissa Karrigan has taught music since 2010, in both her hometown of Homer, Alaska and in the Minneapolis-St Paul metropolitan area. During her collegiate career, she was awarded the Piano Music Scholarship, a Music Grant, and the highest obtainable Transfer Scholarship from the University of Northwestern Saint Paul. She also competed for and won the Pinsonneault Scholarship in 2014. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from University of Northwestern in December of 2016.
After many years of teaching in various music schools, after-school programs, and privately, Melissa founded Karrigan Music Studio in 2022. The core mission of her home studio is to pass on the ability to play, understand, and experience the beauty of music from the past and present, ultimately training her students in aesthetics.
Few students go on to be professional musicians (and it’s thrilling when they do), but Melissa’s goal for each student is that making and enjoying music would be a permanent, soul-enlarging part of their lives.
Melissa also offers lessons in guitar (classical foundations and bluegrass/fingerstyle) and ukulele (fingerstyle and lead sheets), but piano is her principal, first and foremost loved, instrument. She teaches beginning to early advanced levels centered on classical repertoire.
Contact email:
Dean Epperson, NCTM
Location: Anchorage/Hillside
I have been an Alaskan resident since 1954, when my family moved from Los Angeles, California, to homestead on the Kenai Peninsula.
After receiving a BM in piano performance at UAF and a Masters in Music in piano at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland, I returned to Anchorage and started my private piano studio and also became an Adjunct Professor at UAA.
I have taught various classes at the UAA Music Department and currently I am teaching piano master class, functional piano, and private piano.
I still have a private studio in my home and enjoy working only with intermediate and advanced piano students.
I was one of the founding members of the Alaska Music Teachers Association (AMTA) and continue to serve the Anchorage Keyboard Teachers Association (AKTA) as their treasurer.
Contact Email:
Cynthia Epperson, NCTM
Location: Anchorage / Hillside
Cynthia Epperson has taught private piano in Anchorage since 1986. A nationally certified teacher with the Music Teachers National Association, Ms. Epperson is actively involved in the local, state, and national levels of MTNA and is President of the Alaska Music Teachers Association.
She is much sought after as a skilled instrumental and vocal accompanist. In addition to her work as a musician and teacher, she is a registered nurse with extensive experience in the rehabilitation of repetitive motion injuries and is frequently consulted by local insurance companies and physicians.
Pianists, piano teachers, and other instrumentalists also consult her when they or their students experience pain and other symptoms of the upper extremities due to Taubman training.
Contact Email: cindyepperson6@gmail.com