Lexington Piano Teachers

The Music Institute of Lexington offers piano lessons for students of all ages and experience levels. Each of our piano teachers is an experienced musician as well as a music educator. Please call us if you would like to arrange a meeting with any of our faculty members. We are eager to welcome you into our musical family.

Mylinda K. Dockery		Mylinda K. Dockery is founder and Executive Director of The Music Institute of Lexington in Kentucky. Now in its 14th year, The Music Institute of Lexington serves 675 students with 450 students on subsidized tuition. In 1995, Ms. Dockery founded the Trinity Music Academy in Troy, North Carolina, which is a church-based community music school. It was featured in The Living Church as a model program for churches to copy when expanding their outreach through the arts. Ms. Dockery has been involved in the management of community music organizations for twenty years. Ms. Dockery received her B.M. from Salem College and her M.M. from the North Carolina School of the Arts where she was the recipient of the Kennan Organ Scholarship for Outstanding Talent. She has studied with Jane Carlson at the Juilliard School and holds a certificate from the Academy of Musik in Sion, Switzerland. Ms. Dockery has performed over 3,000 concerts, including a debut of Kurick's Nocturne No. 1 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She has over 25 years of piano teaching experience in both the Suzuki and traditional methods and is an early childhood music specialist certified in Musikgarten®, Kindermusik®, and Orff Schulwerk®.
Maria LeRose-Herndon		Maria completed her Masters of Music in Sacred Music with an emphasis in organ as well as a Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy at the University of Kentucky in 2006. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from UK with a Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance in 2004. In summer 2004, Maria studied organ in Salzburg, Austria with Bernhard Gfrerer. She has been the organist at several churches in WV and SC, and organist and handbell director at Trinity Hill United Methodist Church in Lexington for four years. She has taught piano and organ lessons at the Music Institute of Lexington since 2004, and received her training in the Suzuki Method during June 2005.
Erica Rumbley		Erica is a pianist who is passionate about music and life in general. She began studying the piano at the age of six, and has been playing ever since. At 12 she took up the violin and had lessons during junior and senior high school, playing in the Evansville (Indiana) Youth Philharmonic Orchestra for a season and later spending 2 1/2 seasons with the Olivet Nazarene University Symphony. In 2006, she graduated with a degree in piano performance from Olivet, and then received a Master's in musicology from the University of Kentucky in 2008. She is currently completing a Ph.D. in Musicology and a DMA in Piano at UK (go Cats!), as well as giving recitals, serving as an accompanist on campus, instructing undergraduate music classes, and teaching piano and violin lessons. She enjoys getting to know new students and strives to make the lesson experience fun as well as productive.
Jennifer Shafer		Jennifer graduated with a degree in piano performance from East Texas Baptist University in 2010, and in 2011 she began working on a M.M. in Music Theory at the University of Kentucky. Although her main course of study has changed to music theory, Jennifer's philosophy is "Once a pianist, always a pianist!" While continuing her own piano studies in private, she has also done work as an accompanist on campus. Jennifer enjoys sharing her love for the art of piano playing with her students, and she focuses on helping her students to achieve their very best in their study of the piano.
Beth Scherfee		Beth Scherfee holds degrees from the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music and California State University, Long Beach. She has 26 years of music teaching experience in the private setting and in the classroom.
Dr. Nan Baker Richerson		Nan Baker Richerson returned to her home state of Kentucky in the Fall of 2009. Currently, she serves as Program Director/Piano Faculty at the Music Institute of Lexington where she teaches piano to students of all ages and ability levels. Prior to relocating in Lexington, Dr. Richerson was Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of South Carolina where she taught applied piano, piano pedagogy, experimental research in music, and was director of the Community Music School Piano Division. Dr. Richerson holds graduate degrees from Louisiana State University (Ph.D. in Music Education/Piano Pedagogy) and Florida State University (M.M. in Piano Pedagogy), and is also a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music through Music Teachers National Association. Her research interests are in the areas of adult learners, cooperative learning, sight-reading, and effective instructional strategies in the group piano classroom. Currently, Dr. Richerson serves as a member of the Research Committee for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy.
Raleigh Dailey		Raleigh Dailey is an internationally recognized jazz pianist, composer, scholar, and educator. Currently Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Kentucky, Raleigh spends his time teaching jazz to students of all ages – including those here at The Music Institute. Raleigh has performed widely throughout the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. He is the pianist and staff arranger for the DiMartino/Osland Jazz Orchestra, recording with that ensemble for Sea Breeze Records (Off the Charts [2001] and Quotient [2008]). His most recent international performances were with Vince DiMartino in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.