For over thirty years, Lily Pan Diehl has run a successful and financially viable piano studio in Loma Linda, California. Even though she had three graduate degrees and a secure university position, she took the risk of stepping out on her own and starting a private studio because she had found greater satisfaction in working with young students, getting them at the most impressionable period of their lives.

Additionally, the flexibility of having a private studio enabled her to continue to perform as a soloist and take her role as a mother seriously. In her studio she developed a "Triangle of Success" program which involves the parent, student and teacher in the learning process. Other innovations included a Student Parents' Guild and a highly successful summer music camp which at its zenith involved hundreds of students. Many of her students have won in competitions and have continued study at noted music schools.

See the following article for a more complete story of Diehl's career and life. It is from the 2001 Winter/Spring issue of Notes, IAMA's quarterly magazine.

ds/2007

One of the most dramatic changes in Adventist music education in the last twenty-five years is the almost virtual elimination of full-time keyboard positions at the secondary level. Since music majors in Adventist college programs are mostly vocal/choral and keyboard, many keyboard teachers have, of necessity, established private studios. The success of the Lily Diehl Music Studio, the program she has established, and its effect on its students as well as her continued work as both pianist and singer is a story worth telling. If you know of other similar success stories, let us know, and we will share them with our readers.

Since 1975, Lily Diehl has directed the Lily Diehl Music Studio in Loma Linda, California, where as a well known clinician, educator and performer she has touched the lives of hundreds of children and adults. Knowing how the studio started, about the program, and why it continues to flourish after twenty-five years may provide helpful insights for persons considering taking such a step.

Why would a music teacher with a good reputation, three graduate degrees, and a secure position with a university be willing to risk it all to launch a private studio? The answer for Dr. Lily Diehl was frustration. After having taught at four institutions of higher learning, she had wearied of having to teach whoever happened to want credit and had signed up for piano. Even the best of those piano students had serious gaps in technique and in theoretical and musical understandings. She was simply not getting them at the most impressionable time of their lives.

This became increasingly apparent as she noted the progress of the younger students she was teaching in lessons off campus. Yet another factor was that as a mother, she wanted more time with her two children.

As 1975 began she made a decision to leave the university position and establish an independent studio. Finances were a concern, so she decided that if after three years she had not been able to equal what she had been earning, she would return to a position in academia. Within eighteen months was she not only making more than she had previously, she was enjoying an intensely satisfying sense of professional fulfillment and freedom.

The freedom to innovate and experiment led to a strong conviction that the parent must be involved, not only attending the lessons and overseeing practice, but learning theoretical and musical concepts along with the student. Diehl refers to that cooperative effort as the "Triangle of Success." Basic to the success of that triangle is yet another of her beliefs that, "learning is best accomplished within the context of a loving relationship."

The parent is encouraged to take notes and tape record observations made in the lesson for later reference. If a student is beginning instruction for the first time, Diehl meets privately with the parent ahead of the first lesson so that the she or he is prepared to play their role in the child's learning experience.

The freedom to innovate led to the establishing of a parents guild which includes a group of selected parents who, in addition to helping in various aspects of the program, also are used as a sounding board for new ideas or programs. Diehl observes that that group has been most helpful in both tempering and breathing life into her proposals.

The value of that group is best illustrated by what happened when she presented the idea of having a summer camp in the nearby cooler mountains during the stifling hot heat in the valleys of the country. With their endorsement and support, the first Diehl Music Camp, with its twenty-six piano students and two teachers met. Within ten years the camp had grown to include over 400 students in many musical areas and a staff of twenty-three teachers.

In addition to private lessons, Diehl also provides group piano instruction, utilizing the advantages of modern digital technology. Her studio, which has had as high as 125 students ranging in age from four through sixty-four, have done exceptionally well over the years in various competitions and festivals, often winning the majority of the awards.

At the center of any successful program, however, is an inspiring teacher. Diehl is that, and more. She is goal-oriented and disciplined, totally professional, yet full of fun-loving enthusiasm. These qualities have fostered excellence in musicianship, increased self-understanding, and personal growth in her students.

Graduating with highest honors at the age of eighteen from Santa Isabel College in Manila, Diehl, then Lily Pan, won the National Young Artist Competition of the Philippines that same year. This prestigious honor brought her invitations to perform as a piano soloist with various orchestras and stipends for further study abroad.

She earned a master's degree in music education from Andrews University, summa cum laude, and another in piano performance from the University of Michigan. She completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Southern California. Her teachers included Ruth Slencynska, Hungarian pianist, Gyorgy Sandor, Russian pianist, Serge Tarnowsky, and Joanna Graudan.

Her personal achievements in piano and voice and success with the lead roles in The Sound of Music in 1980 led the press in Southern California to refer to her as "Most Versatile Performer of the Year." Diehl has delighted audiences around the world with her art and her charm. She recently performed before over 50,000 people in Europe and China. She has recorded several albums. Her most recent CD recordings have received rave reviews.

As busy as she is in her private studio and with concertizing, Diehl has been and continues to be a cultural force in her community. She has served as a state officer and branch president of the Music Teachers' Association of California and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Inland Empire Symphony Orchestra. She founded a professional girls choir and served as Executive Artistic Director of the DMC Young Musicians Christian Summer Camp mentioned earlier.

A sought-after state music examiner in California, she is also a faculty member of the American College of Musicians, functioning primarily as an adjudicator for the National Piano Guild Auditions.

In spite of her busy schedule, she and her husband, Dr. Hans Diehl, who directs the Lifestyle Medicine Institute, take their role as parents seriously. Family Matters, Inc. chose them and their two children, Byron, a dental surgery student, and Carmen, a doctoral student in psychology, as "Family of the Year" in 1989. They were cited for their encouragement and support of individual growth and creativity, their nurturing love and teamwork, and their friendship and service to others.

Dan Shultz/2001