Posted on: May 23, 2024; Updated on: May 23, 2024
By
Megan Sexton, msexton@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-1421
Two pianos sit next to each other on the stage at the School of Music Recital Hall — one for the student; one for the teacher.
Proud parents, grandparents, siblings and friends fill the audience, cellphone cameras at the ready. One by one the students stride across the stage to the piano, sneak a peek at the crowd, sit down and begin to play.
At this end-of-the-semester recital, each of these students with special needs performs their repertoire, along with a little improvisation for the audience or some of their own compositions.
And Scott Price, Carolina Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of South Carolina, is right beside them, whispering a word of encouragement, accompanying the student on a duet and filling the stage with a feeling of serenity.
This fall will mark the 25th year of the Carolina LifeSong Initiative, a program started by Price that provides piano lessons and creative music-making experiences for students with autism and other special needs. It’s a program that has made Price an internationally known expert on teaching music to students with special needs. The majority of the students are on the autism spectrum, and he also has taught students with visual and hearing impairments, Down syndrome, ADHD and various types of developmental delays.
“Our philosophy is that we try to help everybody regardless of their unique needs, and to learn from them how to become better teachers,” says Price, who also is the coordinator of piano pedagogy and teaches USC graduate students how to teach piano to this population of students.
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