Teachers at the Piano Academy Berlin
Learning music is a natural tool to help us forming intelligence and a strong character, because it increases the brain’s functions and channels our emotions.
Therefore, a good musical education is an important lifetime investment, whose value is beyond any marketable price.
Dr. Andreas Boelcke
erman-born classical pianist and piano pedagogue Dr. Andreas M. Boelcke holds three university degrees in music. In 1999 Boelcke moved to the U.S. where he received his bachelors degree (B.A.) from Missouri Western State University in 2002. Following a year of intense piano studies under Dr. Elinor Freer at the University of Missouri in Columbia, he was awarded with a full scholarship at the College Conservatory of Music, CCM, in Cincinnati, where he completed the Masters of Music (M.M.) in 2005, and the doctoral degree (D.M.A.) in piano performance with a cognate in piano pedagogy, in December 2008.
Dr. Boelcke has performed as a soloist and in chamber groups in Germany, Belgium, China, Indonesia, and the United States. He won awards at the German Young Artist's competition "Jugend musiziert", the Missouri Teacher’s Music Association, Hellam Young Artists Competition, and scholarships for the Wavre International Piano Course in Belgium. Boelcke has appeared in master-classes with Ann Schein, Rita Sloan, James Toco, Eugene and Elizabeth Pridonoff, Micheal Chertock, and Johann Schmidt.
His teachers have included Jerry Anderson, Elinor Freer, Robert Weirich, and Frank Weinstock. While in the U.S. he served as Music Director at Eastminster Presbyterian Church Cincinnati for three years. Under the name the Amitayus Duo, Dr. Boelcke and the American cellist Dr. Adam Cathcart gave frequent concerts around the world including a 9-11 Commemoration performance in 2011 in front of high ranking politicians, including German president Christian Wulff, Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Frank Steinmeier.
For more than twenty years Boelcke has taught piano at all levels ranging from beginners to advanced. In addition to Private and public music schools in Germany and the U.S. he worked at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and at the College Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, respectively, as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for six consecutive years as a group and private instructor. After finishing his doctoral studies Dr. Boelcke moved to Berlin where he founded the Piano Academy Berlin with his wife Amelia Puspita. Dr. Boelcke's contribution to a cultural exchange between Asia and the West continues to increase. He has given masterclasses and concerts at the Institut Seni Indonesia, in Jogjakarta, and in China at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, and the Liu Shih-Kun Piano Art Center. He performed for an audience of ethnic minorities including Tibetans, Yi, Li, Miao, and Dong at the Southwest University for Nationalities (SWUN) in Chengdu. In April 2011 he gave, together with A. Cathcart the German premiere of Gao Ping's first sonata for piano and cello in Berlin. Since 2012, Boelcke and his wife are hosting a yearly Piano Summer Camp for young Chinese pianists.
Dr. Amelia Puspita
Dr. Amelia Puspita, the Indonesian pianist and piano pedagogue, started piano at the age of three and a half years. She took clarinet at the age of 11 years old and was soon selected as one of the fourteen Indonesian delegations to play at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Symphonic Band in Singapore (1991) and Bangkok (1993). After high school, she received a full scholarship in piano in the United States, where she earned Bachelor Degree in Piano Performance (2002) at the University of Missouri in Kansas City (UMKC).
She received a full scholarship as well as a position as a graduate teaching assistant at the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in Cincinnati where she earned Master of Music in Piano Performance (2004) and Doctoral Degree in Piano Performance (2009) with a cognate in Piano Pedagogy. During her study, she served as the head of the Teaching Assistants of the Secondary Piano Department. Her lecture recital was graded as one of the best performances in fifteen years. She earned her Doctoral Degree in 2009 in Piano Performance with a cognate in Piano Pedagogy.
Throughout her study, Dr. Puspita worked extensively with Robert Weirich, Frank Weinstock, and Van Cliburn Gold Medalist, Stanislav Ioudenitsch. She appeared in masterclasses with Blanca Uribe, Rita Sloan, Elizabeth and Eugene Pridonoff, James Tocco, Cornelia Ogorkowna, Johann Schmidt, and Awadagin Pratt. She has performed in Indonesia, Western Europe, and the U.S., including the performance of Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 in C minor with the Saint Joseph Symphony Orchestra (2000) and the Stravinsky Concerto for Two Solo Piano at the Stravinsky Festival in Kansas City (2001).
Dr. Puspita is passionate about teaching. She has started teaching piano since high school and continued to share the joy of music with students of all ages. She taught piano in various conditions at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, where her duties as a teaching assistant included teaching honor piano class. Privately, many of her students received “Distinction” at the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music (ABRSM) and she regularly gave masterclasses in Indonesia. Dr. Puspita currently lives in Berlin with her husband and her two sons. She continues to collaborate with other musicians and has received a position as the organist at the American Church in Berlin at Dennewitzplatz.
