Background

I grew up as a musical prodigy and formally trained pianist, performing in public from age three and studying at the University of Tulsa School of Music, Piano Preparatory throughout childhood, studying under Dorothy Bowen, a pupil of Artur Schnabel.  I later studied privately in Los Angeles under Edith Knox, a pupil of Alexander Siloti (a Liszt pupil). I also studied organ with Jeanne Gentry Waites of Tulsa University and later Robert Pritchard, organist of Pasadena Presbyterian Church.  Thus ended childhood.

At university, I studied English literature (with emphasis on Modernism in British and Irish Fiction and Poetry). I studied privately and took piano master classes under Johana Harris (Debussy exponent) and master classes with others. 

I graduated magna cum laude from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts.  Later, I taught English Composition, and read Medieval Literature, Swift and Sterne, and Post-1970s Literary Critical Theories at University of New Hampshire, Durham, taking a Master of Arts degree with no distinctions. While working in Wall Street from 1996 to 2004 as an editor of global emerging markets bond research, I took courses at the New York Institute of Finance.