90th Anniversary Composer Announcement
- PPTA
- Dec 5
- 2 min read
Commissioned Piano Piece for PPTA
In honor of PPTA’s upcoming 90th anniversary of our founding in February of 2026, the PPTA is commissioning a short intermediate-level piece for our celebration!
This work will be in recognition of PPTA’s many years of continuous community engagement with our students, our recitals, our competitions, and our scholarships.
We are proud of our history, and we want to commemorate it
with music!
We have FOUND OUR COMPOSER—it is our own PPTA member, Sarana Chou!
Sarana’s educational background and composing experience certainly qualifies her to write a short piano piece for PPTA. Her task will be to capture the spirit of what the PPTA has meant for 90 years for both its teachers, its students, and their families.
Sarana submitted her application before the deadline and the PPTA Board of Directors selected her as our commissioned composer due to her very impressive composition achievements and her academic qualifications. As a fellow piano teacher, we can rest assured that her experience will lend itself to be able to bring forth a wonderful piece of music that can live on for another 90 OR MORE years!
The goal is to be able to have a work that can be accessible to many piano players from the Intermediate level to Early Advanced. Our hope is that Sarana will be able to capture the essence of the PPTA in her own descriptive musical language. We especially would like something CELEBRATORY that can carry our LEGACY forward for generations of piano teachers and students.
Sarana is a freelance composer who was born in Taiwan and lives and works in the Mars area of Pittsburgh. Sarana completed her DMA in Composition, Eastman School of Music, her MA in Composition, University of Chicago, and her BM in Composition, The Julliard School.
Sarana’s works have been performed in Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and by the Boston Brass, and pianist Jimmy Liu. She was an Assistant Professor in Composition at Sanford University and also at West Virginia University.
Sarana’s website is www.saranachou.com
PPTA Celebrates 90 years next February, 2026
Start thinking of ideas on how to celebrate this milestone…
One idea: Have students earn “Piano Pennies” for each measure that they learn. With pledge forms, students can enlist parents, grandparents, teachers, and friends to help sponsor them to earn their pennies. At the end students can donate their pennies to a charity of their choice in honor of PPTA’s 90th Anniversary!
If anyone else has some ideas please share with Charlene Hubbard, PPTA President @ charlenehubbard@hotmail.com
Stay TUNED to the PPTA website for MORE fantastic and fun celebratory events for both teachers and students!
DOWNLOAD THE ANNOUNCMENT PDF BELOW:
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