Naomi Kayayan – Mentor and Lecturer – piano

BMus (Hons) GRNCM, PGCert GSMD, PGDip, MA, FHEA

With over 20 years experience in the field of music education, Naomi maintains roles across a diverse range of contexts.

In addition to teaching piano at the Junior Department of the Royal Northern College of Music, and on the summer school programme at Chetham’s School of Music, Naomi is a piano tutor at The City of Edinburgh Music School: a unique government funded Steinway school, providing intensive tuition to talented young musicians regardless of demographic or financial circumstances.

Formerly, she also taught piano at two other of Scotland’s specialist music schools: The Music School of Douglas Academy in Glasgow and Aberdeen City Music School. Her teaching in Higher Education includes a role as a mentor/lecturer on the PGCert in instrumental teaching at the University of Chichester, where she is also a module leader on the MA in Practical Music Teaching.

She is a visiting lecturer on the PGCE in specialist instrumental teaching, jointly delivered by the Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Naomi has established a global reputation as a music educator. Before the pandemic, she was Head of Keyboard at an international school in China. Here she established conservatoire progression programmes with leading conservatoires in the UK and USA, with a number of her students winning prizes in international competitions.

Naomi has delivered professional development courses for instrumental teachers in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the UK, where she has given presentations on piano pedagogy and the psychology of instrumental teaching. She is also an examiner and presenter for ABRSM in which capacity she has worked all over the world.

Naomi is passionate about creating pathways for young musicians from underrepresented backgrounds to access professional training and access to quality music education. She has trained in person-centred therapeutic counselling and this informs much of her work in music education. Her teaching practice has encompassed working with individuals and groups from wide-ranging backgrounds; her students have ranged from ages five to seventy-five! Her teaching philosophy is rooted in person-centred psychology and the critical response process.

A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Naomi completed her training at the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Reading and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before returning to the RNCM to pursue a doctorate.

Her PhD takes a phenomenological approach to exploring pedagogical partnerships in conservatoire piano departments and she presents her work regularly at academic conferences both in the UK and overseas.