Part 2 of Season 4 Episode 16: Irina Gorin - Educator, Creator of the "Tales of a Musical Journey" and Founder of The Gorin Institute

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I think I was born with desire to be a teacher. By the end of college, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. It's my life. I can't even say it's my job because I don't think there is a time in my day when I don't think about music or my students or teaching young children, preschool ages. They don't get things from explanations or demonstrations, only through analogies, through images, through stories, through artwork. They need to see, they need to hear, they need to imagine. And they need to feel or experience. In my books, the stories, the songs, they all work for developing students' imagination and making them active participants in the lessons rather than passive observers. So they participate, they want to experiment, they want to try.

Hello, piano enthusiasts! Welcome back to The Piano Pod with me, Yukimi Song. Today, we're diving deeper into the second installment of this season's 16th episode with Irina Goran, the visionary behind the Tales of a Musical Journey method book series and founder of the Goran Institute. In case you missed part 1 of this inspiring episode exploring her acclaimed method books for young beginners, enriched with storytelling and vibrant imagery, don't worry, you can catch up on all the excitement on your favorite podcasting platform right now. A warm welcome to all our new listeners! This podcast is your all-access pass to that captivating world of piano. In each episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, I interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the industry. Please rate the show and review it on your favorite podcasting platform because every rating and review will help people find my show. And as for our faithful listeners, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your loyal listenership. Since 2020, we've been exploring how to make classical music resonate in fresh ways with today's audience. To keep bringing you these episodes, my show relies on your support. Every contribution aids in covering essential podcasting expenses. So, click the PayPal link in the show notes or visit thepianopod.com to donate. I will personally mail you The Piano Pod's logo sticker as a token of gratitude. So my friends, here is Part 2 of The Piano Pod Season 4, Episode 16, featuring Irina Goran. Please enjoy the show.

So I mean, I have a lot more questions with the piano technique, but that's another, another time. I think you have to come back and just— we just need to focus on one topic at a time, I think, because you're so resourceful. But I'd like to know who Ms. Irina Goran is. So basically, you know, explain that you're from, originally from Ukraine. That's where the training happened, but by whom were you influenced to become a teacher today?

You know, I think I was born with desire to be a teacher. Even when I was 5, 6-year-old, I remember myself playing school with my friends, having a journal, putting grades to imaginable students. My mom was a teacher. She was teaching, um, Russian language and literature in school. She was amazing storyteller. She introduced me to all the writers and painters. And explained how painting and literature work together while my father was ballet dancer. And I practically was born in the theater, almost. So I, I used to watch all the performances, ballet and opera. We had a big theater in Kyiv and my father was one of the leading um, dancers. So I, I was raised in very cultural family. My older sister took piano lessons, so she's 10 years older. So when I was born, she was already quite advanced in piano playing. So I remember myself falling asleep, and we lived in such small apartments, piano was in my bedroom. I remember falling asleep with the sounds of Greek sonata, which was very hard to fall asleep.

Wow. I hope you had a good dream.

So I had all this music sounding all the time in my head. But I also loved young kids, little kids. I love to babysit and When I went to college, of course, of course, I was very ambitious to become a pianist, but with time I realized that being on stage is not my passion, especially by myself. I loved accompaniment. Uh, I accompanied singers and other instrumentalists and choirs. I loved it. Not solo performance. But by the end of college, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. Again, I, I dreamed of being a teacher in my head. I was such a great teacher that kids would love to practice. It was all destroyed in one, in one. Yeah, I, it's, it's my life. I can't even say it's my job. It's practically my life because I don't think there is a time in my day when I don't think about music or my students or teaching. Of course I have family and I, of course I want to spend time with my own children and talk to them. But between that, I live by, by music and teaching.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm sorry for what's happening in Ukraine right now. It must be so heartbreaking. But in many ways, you grew up in cultural balanced life.

Yes.

Yeah, that's beautiful. And, you know, as this country, United States, as rich as it is, to go to the concert hall is actually like you kind of have to make an effort to get go. You know, it's not quite surrounded by it, although I live in New York City, but it's an effort, right? And even like when I tried to encourage my students.

And a lot of money.

Oh, definitely.

When I was in Ukraine, I can't even remember the weekend that my parents wouldn't take me either to museum or theater or concert hall. It was kind of like a routine. Very inexpensive and it was We had it. It's just our life.

Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

And we had so many theaters.

Yeah.

I can't even count. We probably had several drama theaters, opera and ballet theater, opera and ballet for children's theater, where my father worked late years of his life. And we probably had 10 or 15 orchestras. And we have musical comedy theater where my husband worked in. So yeah, it was the way of life.

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You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com.

I know you are influencing a lot of millions of people out there. You, you yourself even can't imagine how many people are impacted through your methods, through your videos. So the Goren Institute. So can you provide an overview of the mission and goals of the institute? Who is this for? What educational programs or courses this institute offers to support professionals?

Absolutely. It's another interesting story which I never thought would happen. I didn't have any idea. If you ask me if I thought it would happen 5 years ago, I would say never. But the circumstances, the life just happened. It just happened. So since more people started watching my videos with Tales of a Musical Journey, they started asking questions. And of course, it's really hard to answer all the questions through like a comment or even email. And, uh, I started visiting— I was invited to give short presentations and workshops in different universities. Then I started organizing workshops in my own town, Carmel. I had lots of teachers coming. I was invited to work for a week in Boston in music school at Piano Camp and gave workshops. So I had maybe 5, 6 big workshops per year. But in 2017, I was contacted by a musician originally from Austria, Patrick Lechner, who invited me to come to International Week to China. Their university was organizing this International Week where they would invite people with workshops, with master classes. And even though it was very scary for me, first of all, to travel alone, not knowing anything about the country, never been there before. But as my husband says, I was very brave and went, and it changed my life. I'm so happy I did because it completely changed my life. While being there, I was invited to 10 different cities with workshops and amount of attending, the number of people attending was mind-blowing. And at the same time, I was invited to work in the university. And next year, my whole family moved to China. Not, not the whole family, my youngest daughter, my husband, and I moved to China for me being able to work at the university and continue doing those workshops.

Really? So you're moving away from the United States?

Yes. I lived for 3 years in China.

Oh my goodness.

Yes. I've met amazing people, amazing teachers. I'm still friends with so many of them. I loved it. Just, just loved it. And then COVID happened. It happened while winter break when my family came back for 4 weeks, and we never were able to go back to China. I still taught for 2 more years at university until my contract ended, and then I didn't renew it because I don't feel teaching online was fulfilling for me or very helpful for students, and I finished my contract. But when I came here, teachers— when COVID happened, everyone was a little bit in despair. What to do? We couldn't teach. Teaching online was terrible, especially the early days. And people just started asking me, why don't you organize some kind of workshops but online? And that's how I started learning about Zoom. And about all these online things. And I organized the first mock-up of courses. And in the very first time I announced it, 250 people signed up. And as I did it for first 3 months, I realized that that type of workshop has a lot of advantages. First of all, people don't have to travel. They can watch the recording at their own time. They don't have to sacrifice their schedule, their time with children or families, their students to be at the session. And also they always get a front row seat because when you have 200 people in the room and you try to show something at The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, only few people can actually see it. But when I do it and I have my side camera next to me and I can show everything and they can do it on their side and I can give them a feedback, it made all the sense. And after I did it once, they said, "We don't want to stop. You have to continue." And for the first 3 years, I worked on creating a really deep, comprehensive curriculum for piano teachers. Starting from the first year of piano lessons, going step by step through every technique, through every activity, having them practice it, send me videos. We actually have a, for each level, we have a private Facebook group where teachers post their videos of doing that. And I comment and other more experienced teachers comment. Now I have teachers who are in their 5th year of these courses and they became my helpers and they help with new participants. And I have teachers from starting from probably 19-year-old up to 70-something years old. I have one teacher who is 85.

Oh, wow.

From New Zealand.

Oh my goodness.

Amazing. Especially for those who are far away, I have a lot of teachers from Singapore, from Taiwan, from Japan, from Europe, many teachers, Australia. I just—

That's incredible. Wow, Irina. That's really— that speaks a volume about you. Yeah.

Continue grow— continues growing. I try to updates the materials a little bit. And every month we have with each level, we have a live Q&A, just like we have with you when they ask me questions. They can show their students' videos. I can pinpoint what they need to work more or what the actual cause of the trouble, the challenges, and how they need to change. So we do a book club. Where we read together some very important books. And we created such a great community of teachers from around the world. We are best friends. I had teachers from courses coming to Carmel just to see me. Uh, and we spent several days together. So it's, it's amazing. And, um, I don't have really, uh, employees. The Guren Institute is basically me, but again, through the courses, I have several teachers who are helping me. They also participate in the courses. And for example, I already mentioned Juliana from Colombia, who was the first translator to Spanish. She, she has two music schools. She is director of two music schools in Colombia. Now she trains her, all her teachers with TEALS. Mm-hmm. Uh, so that way I would say the Word Institute works, when teachers grow, understand, and start training other teachers.

So far we have explored the rich insights of Irina's teaching philosophy and some practical tips. Let's now see her impact in action. Joining us in the next segment is Willette Neumeyer, a veteran piano teacher and music studio owner from Saskatoon, Canada, and a proud graduate of the Goran Institute. She will share her personal experiences and the profound influence Irina's methods have had on her teaching career.

Alright, so thank you for joining us, Willette. Uh, the reason for including you to this episode is your affiliation as one of the many graduates of the Goren Institute and your advocacy for Irina's methodology, along with your usage of her Musical Journey Series. And I'm so excited to get to hear about how Irina's method books and methodologies and courses at The Goren Institute have truly transformed and revolutionized your approach to piano teaching and impacted your students. So tell us about your current status as a piano teacher.

Well, I've always been a part-time piano teacher. I worked in the school system as a home economics teacher, but I never wanted to drop teaching music students. I've always loved it. And I started when I was 19. I had my ARCT level from— that's in Canada— for teaching. And I've always maintained a small studio. So I have a lot of experience, but always with a small group. I never had to deal with burnout of big groups. The largest studio I ever had was 28 students. But when I was working full-time outside the home, I had 3 to 6 students on average in a week because I would just work a couple evenings a week. So that prevented a lot of burnout. It was just a wonderful uplifting thing to do in the middle of the rest of my life. My training is from the Victoria Conservatory of Music. I had some really wonderful teachers there. I had some pedagogical training there for 2 years and it has, it always served me well, but I always felt I was missing something. There was something more that I just couldn't grasp. It wasn't part of my training. And that's when I discovered Irina.

Okay. But before we get into the challenging part, how many courses did you take? Did you do them all?

Irina started during COVID and she has 4 levels at the moment. And the 4th level, I'm in it for the 2nd year running because we create it together. We decide what we wish to explore and learn. We set the subject matter. We can post videos of things we are learning ourselves or our students. We're teaching our students. Advice. And it isn't just Irina that helps us, it's the whole group. We have this amalgamation of these incredible teachers from around the world who gather and we're like hive mind. We contribute all these ideas. It's a wonderful growth opportunity because as most piano teachers know, it can be a very isolating experience. So, and during COVID when we were so isolated, her course saved us. Her course saved us. We made friends from all over the world and we were there once a week online working hard and learning so much.

Wow. So, you know, let's get into how Irina's methodology at the Goren Institute impacted your piano teaching journey and, you know, changed the course of your teaching career. So where were you as a piano teacher before meeting Irina or before discovering her methods?

I've always enjoyed teaching. I didn't feel stuck. But I felt I was missing something, that it was limiting. I was doing a good job, but I knew there was more. And then as I discovered her name, came up through YouTube and everything, I was watching how she was working with these very young children, 4 years old, and I knew I would never dare to work with a 4-year-old. And I, I just didn't know how. I didn't have the tools for it. And the freedom and the emotional maturity with which they played was astonishing to me and I wanted that for my students. I just wanted to be a teacher that could do that for my students. So, when COVID came and she was offering this course, this online course, I wrestled with it a bit. I wondered, well, am I going to do this? Am I going to pay for this and do this? And my rationale for it was if I even get 2 really good ideas that will help my students in the future, this will be worth it. And I had to laugh at myself because after the first session, I had written down 17 tools I could immediately apply to my teaching and that I use to this day. Each one of the times we get together are packed full of ideas and different approaches and wisdom and encouragement.

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Incredible encouragement. Um, you no longer feel alone as a, as a music teacher. And so how has it changed my teaching? I would definitely feel comfortable teaching young ones now. Um, I will never teach a 5-finger approach Again, I love her non-legato approach to playing and starting with the third finger. It has allowed my students to develop a natural hand shape, free their wrists, their arm weight, and they're learning to really listen to their sound, not just the middle of the sound. They're learning to listen to the edge, the first edge of the sound and the last edge of the sound, like to train their ears to really listen. And what I love about her methodology is the quality of the music. They are short pieces for quite a while. So students get a lot of repertoire. They're learning a lot of music because it's short and they learn it quickly, probably 2 lessons, sometimes 3 lessons. And, um, it's so pedagogically rich, all of the items she's picked, and they're so carefully scaffolded that, you know, the whole first book is non-legato. And it's quality music. They have duets with it, or you can have recorded accompaniments with it. Students love it. Such variety. And it really trains my students for classical music. It is so rich emotionally, and it uses the whole imagination landscape of a child. So they are expressing a picture with their sound rather than just playing notes. And feeling a rhythm. And so for me, it's just such a, such a rich musical start for these young children. And I haven't found any other North American music methods that use this approach. Before I started with Irina's course, I was using Music Tree, which I loved for the way it taught students to read music. It stayed out of positions and they, but it got into legato far too soon. So, yeah, this is just a much, much better beginning for my students.

Wow.

And they're just more involved. I see more enthusiasm. It's just a more enriching way to teach. Hard to describe, but when you see the sparkle in your students' eyes or they start chuckling with you because their sad kitten did not sound very sad, it sounded mad, you know, and then they change their whole body posture and their whole approach to the sound and suddenly Finally, they've got this very sad kitten in this piece, and it's just remarkable to see it.

Wow. Now, you, uh, just told us like specific things that changed the way you approach teaching young children, but overall, what stands out by, you know, taking her classes, courses, and that are different from others?

She's a master pedagogue. And I never got taught polyphony the way she teaches it. So things in the Baroque era, I'm looking at in a completely different way, teaching them in a completely different way. It's all about quality of sound, efficiency of movement, tension and release. It's just become so refined. It becomes very detailed as we progress further in the course. So it has changed my own playing. And I can help, like, I get transfer students. I, it's rare for me to get a student because I have such a small studio to get a student right from the beginning. I've only had one student since I've taken the course that I could start right from the beginning, but I transfer those skills and I use some of her slightly later level books with my transfer students so that they get to review. And it, it's usually about hand alignment and gathering the hand into a more natural position. Those are, Those are some of the things that I often have to remediate as well as they're usually terrible at reading or they're not following the fingering or they use the fingering to read the notes. And that doesn't work in her method. Because when you move from a 1 to a 2, you're not moving a second. You might be moving to a 3rd. And so they start to have to read the notes and they become very detailed. They start paying attention to slurs, ends of slurs, and how do you finish a phrase? What is the sound you want? They start noticing when you're bumping a phrase. So it's, it's all this refinement.

So sounds like it's an ideal way of approaching young children teaching classical piano playing, but not in a strict way.

Oh no. Irina is so gentle and loving with her students. She never accepts students based on talent. She will accept any student if they have the proper family support. If they have a proper piano, they're willing to help the young child practice, this sort of thing. And she'll take on transfer students as well. As long as they're really keen to be there, she will teach them. And she is so kind and she encourages all of us to be kind and respectful because we have to understand when a child is struggling or may possibly even misbehaving, what is really going on with that child. And it always, always comes from a place of respect. There's also authority there.

Wow.

Yeah, that's a, like a really ideal character as a teacher, right? Yeah. So tell us about Irina Gorn herself. What qualities, you mentioned a little bit, but characters does she possess that make her an exceptional person and mentor to you?

She is very, very humble. She is open to discussion on anything. She is incredibly generous with her time and her knowledge. Um, I often find music teachers are very territorial and they want to hold their information close to their chest and they want their studio to excel and they've got students competing. And she is about helping everybody.

Bloom.

And she wants to help teachers who can help then those students. Her goal with teaching music is to create more empathic human beings who love music and who are self-expressive. That's her goal. And it, it really hurts her to see children struggling with tight hands and, and, you know, claws and, and sitting improperly and banging the piano and, you know, very percussive sound. She knows what children are capable of. So her generosity stands out, her kindness, her respectfulness, and she has this amazing ability to zero in on the one thing that will make the most impact in someone's playing. And I was lucky enough to visit her. She just welcomes us with open arms. We go to visit and she gives me some lessons and, um, In the hour and a half, I was playing Bach and Debussy and Mendelssohn, and every piece that I played for her, she would find 2 or 3 things that were so impactful that would raise it to the next level. It was remarkable.

You also get to take piano lessons from her.

Well, I did. I did. I went down one summer for a few days and learned from her and watched her teach. And you are able to have Zoom lessons with her online if you wish. I've only done one of those. It was very, very helpful. But yeah, no, she's so generous with her time. And again, humble. I can't recommend the course enough. If there are piano teachers out there who are feeling stale or stagnant or struggling, saying, how do I deal with certain issues? If they even just take the first level, it will solve so many issues for all the future years of their beginner students. Uh, it is such dense, rich material that is easily applied. It's a huge learning curve, but it is so worth it. It will make their lessons so much more joyous and involving. They will get far better results with their students, greater involvement with their students. I can't recommend it enough. I think people hesitate sometimes because they either don't want to pay, and the courses are priced very reasonably. We can't believe what we get for the money. Or they just feel like they can't keep up. Their lives are so busy, they can't keep up with the course. But I, everybody that's joined, some of them say, yes, I can't keep up, but this is so good. And everybody says they've just never encountered such a worthwhile course before in their lives.

Well, thank you again for joining this testimonial segment of Irina's episode. Now, what are the common struggles and challenges, or sometimes misconception, misunderstanding you see from teachers very individual.

Uh, some teachers are just tired to be not happy with the results they see in their students. Some teachers are just curious. Some teachers struggle with certain techniques and they see how easy, for example, my students do that. They want to learn. It's, it's really hard to pinpoint. Everybody has their own reasons. Some teachers started using Tales books and they don't understand the real background, so they want to learn it even though they see results, but they wanted to go in depth. A lot of teachers actually, those who started, who found Tales first then they found my courses and they joined them.

So where can we sign up for your course?

So there is a website called thegoraninstitute.com and there are all the levels. Teachers can sign up anytime to any level they want, uh, because some teachers might feel comfortable with beginners, but for example, in level 2 Our main focus are techniques such as skills, attitudes, some technical skills as Alberti bass, choosing the repertoire, the process of working on musical composition, supplemental repertoire, pedagogical analysis, starting to learn polyphony. Every course has 20 sessions. And 10 Q&As. And Level 3 is more advanced. We work on sonatinas and other larger forms. We work on little preludes by Bach, inventions and symphonias, and we work on Romanticism in music. We work on Schumann Album for the Young, My Kaparr, some other composers. So, uh, every level is a little bit like— they are— I would say the most useful would be to go through all of them. But if teachers don't want to spend the whole year, even though I offer intensive options, or if they pay for the whole course, they can watch in one sitting everything and go to next level. I think it's helpful, but it's not mandatory.

I see. Okay.

They can join level 2 or level 3, then go to level 1. The only thing, I have level 4, which we call alumni level, and that's where teachers who went through all my courses can join, and that's where they have lots of benefits, like having free access to all the videos, to all the Q&As, being able to attend all the Q&As of our levels. But it's, it's like a cherry on the top. You have to go through, through levels to be able to join.

Wow.

I have like 50 teachers in the alumni level.

Amazing. Wow. That's so fantastic. So that's thegoringinstitute.com. Right?

Yes.

Okay, great. Now I know I have so many more questions, but it's almost, you know, toward the end of our conversation. So I have one thing that from our audience that who asked me to ask you, how should we as piano teachers enlist parents in facilitating regular practice for young beginners? So meaning, you know, parents, how should we encourage parents to participate in their practice?

It's a really good question. And unfortunately, there are a lot of arguments about importance of parental involvement, and some teachers don't even allow parents in their lessons. I think, and it's— I learned it from my pedagogy teacher, Victor Makarov, who also wrote a book about piano pedagogy. He had a little sketch of a bird, uh, flying and the child sitting on the bird with one wing being a teacher and the other wing being a parent. And the question is, if one wing is missing, will the bird fly? Will the child continue flying? Of course not, it will be a big fall. And on my initial interview I, again, as I mentioned before, I don't choose a student or choose student by their abilities. I choose if I can work with parents and if they follow my instructions, my directions, and my main request, my main demand for parents to be involved. How involved? I explain them right away, but I also continue educating them. Through all the years of piano lessons. And the ways are through newsletters, through articles. There are tons of articles about importance, through little suggestions. I, at least twice a year, I do piano teacher-parent conference where I discuss with parents the progress. We look together at the schedule. We try to tweak things around to give a good time to piano practice, to make it a routine. Of course, it's very hard, even when parents are present at the lesson, it's very hard to answer all their questions or tell them everything, especially in front of the child. So I do it without children, one-on-one, but they are also active participants in the lesson. If they become too much, and that happens, it also takes some training and education. I just tell them the child gets distracted, so you need to sit a little bit farther and ask questions only after the lesson. Don't— I don't allow them to correct the child because I am the one to do that. If we pick on the child from two different sides, it's not gonna be good. So in the lesson, I'm the one who teaches. They observe and learn and record. I actually video record every lesson, not only for the purpose to post it on YouTube, but it's for parents. Watch the lesson. Not for students, they, they will not be interested to look again at the lessons they, they were. But parents can always go back and see what was emphasized, what's important. Sometimes, you know, when parents are involved, the big challenge is, uh, arguments at home. You don't know. I used to tell my mom, how do you know I'm taking lessons? You can't tell me what to do. 'And my teacher is not here, so I know better.' But having the video, they can show them, 'Look, your teacher told you to do that,' and that really helps. I require parents to send me pictures, videos from their home practice so I can catch mistakes early. So they need to be aware of the process. And the thing, when children know that parents are involved, it truly helps them to feel support and they do something that is valuable. Because if child is dropped off at the lesson, then picked up, and then at home, go practice, they feel grounded. They feel unprivileged. It's, it's punishment. And especially young children, they can't be alone. They don't feel the piano as a friend to communicate with, like grown-up people might feel, right? We need to grow that relationship. We need to teach them. And if parents are there, if they support, if they encourage, not argue, not scream, but support and encourage and make sure the schedule works so the child is not too tired when they practice the piano. When they go to the concert together and can discuss, those are the best ways to work.

Well, thank you. Thank you for this, your wisdom. And I'm sure my audience's members are really happy to hear that. So for those who are listening and watching this episode, please check out irenagoren.com for her method books, uh, Tales of a Musical Journey series. And also please join her Facebook forum, Passionate Piano Teacher Community. And also you can check out her pedagogy courses, The Goren Institute, at thegoreninstitute.com. So Irina, thank you. This has been a really fun and inspiring conversation. But before I let you go, we have one more thing to do. It's called The Piano Pod with Rapid Fire Questions. So this is part of the show where I ask, I get to ask fun questions to each guest. Here's a little twist. As silly as these questions may sound, they may reveal who truly you are. So get ready. Yeah, let's start. Yes, let's start with the fun, easy questions. Okay, so level 1, question number 1: What is your comfort food?

Ice cream.

Great, me too. Right, number 2: How do you like your coffee in the morning?

Black coffee with sugar.

Cats or dogs?

Um, I had a dog, so probably dogs.

Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset.

So this is going to be level 2. What skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had the chance to?

Dancing.

Oh.

What is your word or words to live by?

Never give up.

Hmm. Yes. What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

Honesty.

Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

My parents and my teachers.

Level 3. 2 more questions to go. Name one piece in your current playlist.

Oh, oh my goodness. You know, it's always been probably Rachmaninoff Concerto No.

2. Ah, of course, the best. Yes. Now, final question. Fill in the blank. Music is blank.

Music is a life.

Great. Beautiful. Thank you. So that concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Irina Poznik. Thank you, Irina, for joining my show today and sharing your stories and expertise. So for The Piano Pod listeners and viewers, please visit thegoraninstitute.com to learn more about Irina's organization and connect her on social media. All the links are listed in the show notes. Thank you to my wonderful audience and fans for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on whatever podcasting platform you use. Remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Follow The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song on social media to get the latest piano news via Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Bye everyone, and thank you so much, Irina.

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for our audience for listening.

Thank you.

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