Events

Dr. Marlais has given over 800 pedagogical presentations and master classes for pre-college students in the past two decades.

These presentations have included featured pedagogical presentations at national conventions, state conventions, and presentations for piano pedagogy classes and piano teachers’ groups. She was the intermediate-level master class teacher for the 2019 National Convention of Music Teachers (MTNA) in Spokane, WA. She has presented pedagogical sessions at the National Music Teachers Convention (MTNA) every year since 2004. She has given presentations, recitals, and masterclasses at the California state convention for 20 years. Internationally, she has presentations and master classes in India, Australia, New Zealand, S. Korea, Taiwan, Jamaica, Italy, Turkey, and Canada.

She has been a featured pedagogue at the following state conventions: California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nebraska, Hawaii, New Jersey, Arkansas, Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Arizona, and Oregon. She will be the featured guest teacher and masterclass clinician at the Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota state conventions coming up. She was a head-line clinician for the National convention of Federation of Music Clubs in the summer of 2024, in the state of Michigan in 2023, and will be presenting in Georgia for their state convention of Federation Music Clubs in Fall, 2025. She has given piano teacher’s workshops in every state throughout the country, except three.

The piano series that she has developed and published for The FJH Music Company have become an integral part of piano students’ repertoire across the country and abroad. Excellent external reviews have come from the European Piano Teachers Association-EPTA, Canada, and the U.S. The methods: Succeeding at the Piano,® and The All-in-One Approach to Succeeding at the Piano®; and the series, Succeeding with the Masters, ® The Festival Collection, ® and In Recital® all have companion CD recordings for each book. Other series that round out her catalog are: Sight Reading and Rhythm Every Day ,® Energize Your Fingers Every Day, ® Play Your Scales and Chords Every day, ® The FJH Intervallic Reading Series®. Write, Play, and Hear Your Theory Every Day, the FJH Adult Piano Curriculum, and In Recital® for the Advancing Pianist. The Contemporary Keyboard Editions® focuses on piano music by contemporary art-music composers. Her series are known for their strong commitment to musicality, body-friendly technique, and the importance of classical composers, all taught in a joy-filled manner. All of the 250+ books are under the umbrella titled The FJH Pianist’s Curriculum® by Helen Marlais.

Dr. Marlais has performed more than 400 concerts and recorded many notable, commercially released, and extensively distributed recordings with her husband, virtuoso clarinetist, Arthur Campbell. One of their CD’s was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards, which is like the American Grammy Awards, but international in scope.

Pedagogical lineage

Dr. Marlais has been inspired by her teachers and their teachers: Frances Renzi, Rosina Lhévinne, and Beveridge Webster; Alan Feinberg and Dorothy Taubman; Ralph Zitterbart, Irene Schreier Scott, Elvina Truman Pearce, and Fran Larimer; and Harry Franklin, who traced his musical genealogy through Alexander Siloti to Franz Liszt.