Mack Grout graduated magna cum laude in 2008 from Cornish College of the Arts, with a bachelor’s degree in piano performance and has won several awards including the prestigious Louis Armstrong award. He has been playing professionally in bands and as a soloist since he was fourteen years old, and has been running a successful private instruction studio for the last six years. Mack’s forte is in jazz and blues piano, but he has also spent an extensive amount of time playing and studying classical piano. Mack believes that in today’s world, to be a successful musician you have to appreciate and be able to play all different styles of music. The first professional band Mack ever played in was a Hawaiian band, and you can catch him playing in jazz bands, rock bands, country bands and hip-hop groups around the northwest. Mack is the keyboardist for the popular Dudley Manlove Quartet, which is raved by the Seattle P-I as “The quintessential party band – suave hits, eclectic misses and cocktail favorites.” Mack started taking piano lessons at the age of three, from his babysitter in the thriving metropolis of Port Orchard, WA. For about ten years, he went through standard classical piano training with several different teachers (Nadean Clarke, Helen Richardson). When entering junior high, Mack decided he wanted to be in a rock band (This is in the nineties, when keyboards were not popular in “rock bands”. I think it had something to do with the 90’s being as anti-80’s as possible… the 80’s had a plethora of keyboards!). He switched private instructors, and started studying with Larry Key in Belfair WA. Larry promised to teach Mack to play rock and roll, but first he had to learn how to play the blues. Long story short, Mack fell in love with playing blues and jazz piano, and decide to make a career out of it. Mack attended Cornish College of the Arts on scholarship where he studied with some of the most talented, and respected professional musicians in the northwest. When approaching teaching, Mack believes in catering to the needs of each student individually. There are some traditional piano techniques that he believes all of his students need to know and understand, but outside of that Mack believes playing the piano should be fun, and he will help each student discover and achieve their individual musical goals.