Violin

Lucia P. May is on the faculty of The Rivers School Conservatory of Music and has opened a private studio in Cambridge, MA. Prior to moving to Minnesota in 2001, she taught year-round at the String Academy at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University . From 2001-2016 she maintained a large private studio in St. Paul and was named Studio Teacher of the Year in 2015 by the Minnesota chapter of ASTA. Since the 1990’s Lucia has taught the violin and chamber music in various programs including the Indiana University Summer String Academy with Mimi Zweig, at the University of Minnesota Bravo! Summer Institute with Sally O’Reilly, and the St. Louis Symphony Community Music School.

In 1984 she received her Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from the Saint Louis Conservatory of Music, before graduate studies at Southern Illinois University. Her teachers included Daniel Majeske, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, Taras Gabora of the Oberlin Conservatory, and Fryderyk Sadowski of the Saint Louis Conservatory. For over ten years she was immersed in pedagogy as part of the teacher training program at SIU Edwardsville, led by John Kendall, a pioneer of the American Suzuki movement. Lucia worked with Kendall in several capacities including graduate teacher assessment in teacher training, pedagogy, and performance.

Lucia became interested in teaching and pedagogy in the 1980s, when her daughter began the violin as a young student of John Kendall, watching firsthand in real time the progression from beginner to advanced violinist. She continued this experiential training as her daughter studied with Mimi Zweig throughout the 1990s, during which time she played with the St. Louis based contemporary ensemble Synchronia.

Additionally, Lucia is a longtime arts advocate who served for fifteen years on the Board of Directors for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and chaired its education committee. She also served for ten years on the Board of the Saint Louis Conservatory and Schools for the Arts. Lucia is a published poet and author of the book Blond Boy.