Best of 2001: Best Piano Teacher For Your (Talented) Kid

Ilana Mysior
619-583-0076

Back in 1977, Gustavo Romero was just a Mexican-American kid from Chula Vista. Now he's a world-renowned concert pianist, San Diego's most famous musical export. "I was teaching a piano master class at UCSD, around 1977," says Ms. Mysior, a member of the respected Gennaro Trio, who has taught gifted students for over three decades. "One of my students asked me to listen to Gustavo. I agreed to. He started with this First Ballade of Chopin, the G-minor, one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire." Mysior took him on and helped launch him into the musical world's stratosphere. She has also taught promising local pianist Martin Knezevic; Heather Buchman, the former first trombone at the San Diego symphony; pianists Colin Hampton and Anooshah Golosorkhi; and Yu Mei Wei, who won "all the prizes possible" in San Diego and now has her own trio in Taiwan. Mysior still takes students if they have one thing: talent.