About 

Rosey Piano School is the realization of Brette Irish’s 13 years of experience in music education. Our school is based upon the idea that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. We value the differences in how students learn best and aim to present music through a lens that is most meaningful to each musician—no matter the genre. All learning types and abilities are celebrated.

Brette Irish started playing piano as a young child after her grandpa gifted her his piano. She is classically trained in both piano and voice with over 24 years of focused study. Brette received her bachelors degree in vocal performance from Western Oregon University and her masters degree in musicology from Portland State University. At WOU she did independent research on early childhood music pedagogy. Her masters thesis was on Claude Debussy’s WWI piano compositions.

With years of experience working at large music schools (Guitar Center Studios, Bach to Rock, and Portland School of Music and Dance), Brette is excited to own her own business where students are provided with individualized instruction. While at PSU she completed a manual on how to read musical notation with an emphasis on utilizing working and long-term memory pathways in the most efficient way possible. She continues to study the Orff Schulwerk and Kodály pedagogies, and has taken a lot of inspiration from Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction by Robert Duke.

Brette has also been actively involved in the local Portland music scene since she was a teenager, playing shows at venues like Mississippi Studios and Doug Fir Lounge. Her music has been covered by nationally recognized publications such as Stereogum, and has received local coverage in Willamette Week, The Portland Mercury, and OPB. Brette served as a record label intern at Tender Loving Empire and was the music curator for Art Market PDX.

In her spare time she enjoys her many house plants, cooking, the NYT crossword, and spending time with her loved ones.