Title: Director, President

Company: The Leopold Mozart Academy, The Franz Fassbind Foundation

Location: Elkins Park, PA

ELKINS PARK, PA, February 6, 2015, Born in Switzerland to a family of artists started to music lessons at age 4. Exposed to music and music studies in abundance during her youth she graduated from the College of Performing Arts in Zurich at the young age 20 with a degree in Pedagogy and solo performance. She performed throughout middle Europe and recorded for many Radio Broadcasting stations. With her husband she lived in Reykjavik, Iceland for 7 years where she taught, recorded and lectured on piano literature at Icelandic State Radio with special attention to the Baroque and Second Viennese School. She performed the Arnold Schoenberg Piano concert for his Hundred Birthday celebration under the baton of Karsten Andersen. She performed the Goldberg Variations 11 times in different European cities.

After moving to the United States she studied for 2 years at the University of Arizona with Richard Faith and composition with Robert Mc Bright. She concentrated on Chamber Music collaborating with many fine musicians. In 2001 she founded her own Music school “The Leopold Mozart Academy” in order to devote herself to teaching, sharing her own fine education and her 50 years of experience.

“LMA” is known for its small but exquisite learning environment. It offers its services in two different counties, Montgomery (at the city of Philadelphia border) and North East Bucks County.

A carefully selected faculty with extensive performance experience but more so with degrees in pedagogy and music education enables teaching on a broad amount of levels from early childhood to college preparatory, the gifted and the special child. Classes offered are:

Piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet, percussion, voice, harp. In addition string ensemble which creates the opportunity of performing Baroque and early classical works including concertos with our own students and faculty as soloists.

Most important is our 5 year Preparatory Theory and Solfeggio Program which leads to our Advanced Theory, College level classes. The latter are taught by the same University faculty teacher as the composition program which produced already several prize winning works.

Our school is also open for children with learning difficulties which brings us much joy and wonderful, sometimes almost miraculous results. It is part of the Franz Fassbind Foundation which is also the home of the Young Composers’ Forum, and by means of a competition searches for talented High School Student composers in the surrounding Counties. The winners will have the opportunity to attend Masterclasses taught by a prestigious composer as well as a concert in which their pieces will be performed by professional performers. Our students love to play for the elderly and LMA launched a big educational project for the YMCA of a neglected neighborhood, teaching for free and donating instruments.

Besides discipline and diligent practicing we train our students not just in performing but also in verbal expression: leading dialogues and formulating opinions about the music they study. We teach them to become good audience, show good sportsmanship and to learn from defeats.

Contact Ursula Ingolfsson-Fassbind