musicrecovery

Kaila Rochelle has performed solo recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall, the Brooklyn Museum, CAMI Hall, Greenwich House Music School, Kingsboro Community College, New York City Technical College, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the Rusk Institute, the Bösendorfer Classical Keyboard Instruments Series, The Hebrew Educational Society, the Kingsbay YMHA, as well as many senior centers, libraries, hospitals and nursing homes. She has performed concertos by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Grieg with local community orchestras. As a pianist during her teens in the late 1960s and early 70s, Kaila's performances were heard on classical radio stations in New York City. More recently, she has been a featured artist on local public service television stations.

Her piano teachers have included Joan Tower and two former pupils of Claudio Arrau, German Diez and Jose Aldaz. She studied with Tower and Diez in her teens and performed for Claudio Arrau, who offered her great encouragement. In her thirties and forties, Kaila resumed her piano studies with Diez and began her work with Jose Aldaz. In 1997 she completed a degree program in piano performance from The Empire State College, State University of New York.

Kaila began formal piano lessons at age five, performed her first Mozart Sonata in public at age six, and attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. In her senior year, she became disabled by an extremely rare, latent birth defect of the cervical spine. She had to stop playing the piano for sixteen years while undergoing numerous upper and lower back operations. Her right arm was most effected by her problems during this period of her life.

She still struggles with overcoming issues related to her set back. Her life in music was rebuilt through her devotion to her special education teaching career. She has created a music program as a special education music teacher of 25 years that has enabled her to overcome her own issues while developing and nurturing the music potential of thousands of special needs students. The culmination of her efforts to rebuild her life in music while assisting other students with developmental and neurological disabilities can best be explored at her internationally recognized web site:

http://specialneedsinmusic.com

The web site, created with her project manager Kenneth Babb, is a presentation of piano music, improvisation and rare and familiar folk music. There are worksheets, lesson plans, achievement certificates, multimedia lessons and other resources for the classroom and home study. It is designed for people of all abilities and challenges. An article about the "Special Needs In Music" web site, written by Professor Elise S. Sobol appeared in the November 2009 issue of the NYSSMA (New York State School Music Association) "School Music News" magazine:

http://specialneedsinmusic.com/text/musictreasweb11-09.pdf

Her current piano performance goals are to relearn and rerecord many of the pieces she has studied for the last twenty years.

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Ralph Blauvelt of the Rockland Journal News wrote:

"...with the agile precision of a cat...stroked Soler's repeated notes to make them sound as if they had been cleanly plucked on a guitar...crisp, sparkling articulations...Bamboula March rhythms and Spanish colors suggested visions of a procession...gently rocked the syncopations...intense earnestness...program sparkles."

Kaila Rochelle has raised thousands of dollars throughout her renewed career to help people who are in the process overcoming disabilities through anti-stigma concerts. She has also raised funds for animal rescue groups.

Recordings

Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven - Sonatas
Chopin - Fantaisie Op.49
Chopin - Polonaises
Chopin - Waltzes
Debussy - Pour le Piano
Falla - Fantasia Beatica
Gottschalk - The Union
Granados - Spanish Dances
MacDowell - Woodland Sketches
Mendelssohn - Rondo Capriccioso
Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words
Satie - Fantaisie-valse
Scarlatti - Sonatas
Soler - Sonatas