I'm going to travel light to the islands for a break in my podcasting and other Internet life.  We'll be on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, until April 25th.

This is the mp3 version of Episode 56, Pianocaster Mario Ajero.

Mario Ajero is Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Coordinator of Class Piano at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He also hosts The Piano Podcast. He was in Denver this week for the Music Teachers National Association conference, which gave us a chance to meet for the first time in person after two years of knowing each other on the Internet.  In this interview, he talks about how he uses technology to advance the role of music in people's lives, especially related to the piano. He also describes a beta evaluation he's doing for a new product making it possible to teach piano via the Internet.  After the interview, Mario took me to a performance by famed pianist Lang Lang at Trinity Methodist Church, which was incredibly great.

I first came across Mario's music when I was looking for something to go with this video podcast from Maine nearly two years ago, and I returned to him again for this one.

Music for this episode is Mario playing Robert Schumann's Piano Novellette in D Major, courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.