A Personal Journey toward Teaching Success

Abstract

Margaret Pressley is well known in the Pacific Northwest as a teacher of gifted pre-college violinists and as an enabler of conservatory-level music education in Seattle. Attending the University of Washington, with a major in violin performance, she chose a career in violin pedagogy, which has spanned 30 years. Pressley has built a highly successful class of continuously prize-winning students, who are eagerly sought by conservatories. She is the founder and director of the Pressley Conservatory of Music in Seattle. Pressley is a lecturer at Western Washington University and is also on the faculty of the Indiana University Summer String Academy, a member of the advisory board of the Seattle Young Artist Music Festival and the National Music Teachers Association Competition String Repertoire Committee, and string chair for the Washington State Music Teachers Association. She was named ASTA's 1994 Washington State Studio Teacher of the Year.