Ellen Johansen

Background

About Ellen Johansen

Ellen Johansen is a classical pianist and piano teacher as well as an early childhood music and movement expert. Mrs. Johansen practices, performs and teaches on the East End of Long Island and has recently given a recital of Albeniz, Debussy and Mendelssohn at Hofstra University. She is presently developing a new concert of Fantasies written for piano including J.S. Bach’s Fantasy in c minor, Schumann’s Fantasy Op. 17 and John Corgiliano’s Etude Fantasies. Ellen is also involved in a project playing Herbert Rothgarber’s Sonata in D major in concert as a world premiere. On a given day you will find her either working out the intricacies of newly composed works, sharing insights to teenage piano students or teaching the elements of music through movement to children as young as 3 months. Ms. Johansen also teaches a unique group piano class that bridges a young children’s experience of music to the rigors of learning to read music and play piano. Music has always been in her family. Her great grandfather was an organ builder in Brooklyn and her Grandmother taught piano lessons during the Great Depression. Her earliest memory of playing the piano is playing six-handed piano duets, often being squeezed on the piano bench by her Aunt and mother. She studied piano with Jennie Alessi, Katherine Parker at the Juilliard School and Blanche Abram at Hofstra University. Along with her husband Howard, she is enjoying the empty nest as her three children explore, study and work in the cities of Boston and New York City. When not practicing or teaching over 60 music students in her music studio, Ellen is reading historical novels, running to the beach or biking the rural roads of the Hamptons.