Katie Culp of Creswell, recently passed the highest student level of piano study testing. PHOTO PROVIDED/ALESHA CULP
Two local piano students recently passed the highest level, Level 10, with Distinction during the Oregon Music Teachers’ Association Spring Syllabus Testing Program, held April 27-28 and May 5. They were among more than 100 students from Eugene-Springfield area piano studios who underwent testing.
Katie Culp, a junior at Creswell High School and Teresa Padilla, a Creswell homeschooled sophomore both passed Level 10 with Distinction. Both were formerly taught by Mary Ellen Yost; Culp is now taught by Ellen McQuilkin of Eugene while Padilla is taught by Winifred Kerner of Eugene.
Individual testing includes performing three to four classical pieces from memory or with music; ear training; rhythm reading; sight reading; major and minor scales and arpeggios; chord construction; chord progressions; history; music vocabulary; and modes, whole tone, pentatonic, chromatic and octave scales.
”The testing is comprehensive and requires a lot of preparation. Very few students in Oregon pass Level 10, and even fewer pass with Distinction,” Yost said, noting that exam adjudicators are appointed by the Oregon Music Teachers Association and usually are from a different area of the state.
Three other local students also successfully completed syllabus testing, which includes Levels 1 through 10. Creswell Middle School seventh grader Chris Culp passed Level 6; CMS sixth grader Joanna Gong passed Level 5; and CMS seventh grader Leona Marquess passed Level 3.
