Professional Development Memberships
Qualifications
Master of Arts, University of Oxford
AMTB Performance, Music Teacher’s Board, passed with distinction
Advanced Piano Specialist Certificate, Royal Conservatory of Music
Intermediate Piano Specialist Certificate, Royal Conservatory of Music
Elementary Piano Specialist Certificate, Royal Conservatory of Music
Mental Health First Aider, MHFA Deutschland
Professional Development Memberships
European Piano Teachers Association
EPTA UK
EPTA Deutschland
Curious Piano Teachers
Vibrant Music Teaching
Biography
Born in 1985 in Hereford, UK, Garreth moved with his family to Wales at the age of 8. He began taking piano lessons aged 6, passing with merit or distinction in all of the ABRSM Piano Grades 1-8, including distinction at Grade 8.
He studied Music at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford under the supervision of Dr Roger Allen, a Wagner and analysis specialist. He wrote a dissertation on representations of sexuality in the operas of Benjamin Britten, supervised by the award-winning musicologist Professor Laurence Dreyfus. He sang in the St Peter's College choir and was awarded a choral scholarship for the St Edmund Hall college choir.
After leaving university he taught piano for a few years, then dropped out to explore a different way of living, working for the Youth Hostels Association, travelling the UK and abroad and working with young people, backpacking up the west coast of the US and Canada, and volunteering on organic farms.
In 2014 he moved to Frankfurt am Main Germany where he set up a piano teaching business and began exploring his interest in composition with the support of his artist partner, Anna Salzmann, a frequent collaborator. Since then he’s released music on 1631 Recordings, Bigo & Twigetti, and THESIS, and performed with many contemporary classical artists including Simeon Walker, Clemens Christian Poetzsch, CEEYS, Hania Rani, Frances Shelley, Tom Blankenberg, Nathan Schubert, Jakob Lindhagen and Vargkvint.
In 2018 he moved to a new home in Harheim, Frankfurt, where he composes, teaches piano and composition, curates the contemporary piano sheet music project Upright and helps other composers with their sheet music projects.
In 2020 he began taking piano lessons with concert pianist Detlev Bender, which led to his receiving the AMTB performance diploma from the Music Teacher’s Board in early 2022.