Meet the Teacher
Serena Mak is an accomplished musician and an experienced educator who finds deep fulfilment in sharing her love for life and music with her precious piano students. She is a two-time recipient of the Yamaha Keyboard Festival Teacher Award with over eighteen years of teaching experience under her belt. She has also managed and trained other piano teachers for eleven different school locations.
Beginning her piano studies at the age of five, she completed grade eight piano during primary school, and attained her Diploma of Music in Classical Piano at the tender age of thirteen. Serena went on to study Jazz Piano and regularly performed with a premier jazz ensemble during her high school years. During this time, she was specially selected by the jazz giant himself, James Morrison, as Future Finalist for the BMW Generations in Jazz Scholarship.
Apart from studying Instrumental Music Pedagogy at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Serena also completed a degree in Business Management at the University of Queensland. She was able to put these credentials to work as the manager of Keyboardkidz Piano School for many years, training and supervising piano teachers over a network of school locations all across Brisbane.
In recent years, Serena has been focussing on the management of her own private teaching studio in Runcorn, enthusiastically walking alongside fresh beginners all the way up to diploma level pianists. Apart from teaching, Serena also regularly volunteers at her local church as a pianist and vocalist.
Serena was a featured speaker at TEDxUQ 2022, where she shared her professional view on how we can grow and nurture the next generation of musicians amid the changing scape of music education in Australia.
In her talk, Serena unravelled the problem with traditional, assessment-focused learning and proposed a new and exciting alternative.
Check out her talk below!