Debbie Dunnick
★★★★★ 5 · 8 student reviews
Debbie Dunnick did not arrive at teaching through a side door. She started piano at age eight in Chicago, studied under concert pianist Lydia Smutny Sterba, and went on to earn a Bachelor of Music degree from DePaul University's School of Music — working directly with faculty members Melody Lord and Mary Sauer. Before settling into the teaching studio, she won multiple state, national, and international piano competitions while performing for organizations across Chicago and St. Louis. That competitive and conservatory background informs what happens in her Bradenton lessons today.
“I feel lucky to have found what I needed most in a teacher....patience, understanding and flexibility. Her ability to encourage and motivate her students is phenomenal, especially for someone like myself, who would never play in front of others. I am building my confidence, learning new techniques and having more fun in the process.”
— Barbara Gahry, adult returning student, Bradenton/Sarasota area
Dunnick moved to Florida's southwest coast in 1999 to attend the Ringling School of Art, which gives her an unusually broad creative background — she spent 17 years as a graphic artist alongside her music career, and also studied at the Chicago Art Institute. She eventually put down roots in the Bradenton and Sarasota area, where she has been teaching piano for over 29 years, working with students ranging from five-year-olds navigating their first notes to an 86-year-old returning to the instrument.
What shows up repeatedly across her eight reviews is not flash, but consistency: patience, flexibility, and the ability to calibrate to whoever is sitting on the bench. A former schoolteacher with 30 years in the classroom, Charlene Moeckel, put it plainly — she knows what quality teaching looks like and found it here. A mother named Sonja described Dunnick simultaneously teaching her and her five-year-old daughter, two beginners from entirely different generations, without missing a beat. Julie Shaw noted that her children's skills 'really blossomed over the past year' while the lessons stayed both fun and challenging.
“My old teacher was very serious and we would constantly do theory. Debbie makes it fun, we learn songs that are modern and I can choose what we practice and she never gets angry when I make mistakes. I am also going to do my first recital next week.”
— Isabel, age 12, Sarasota — 4 months into lessons
For adult returners — people who played as children, walked away, and are finding their way back — Dunnick appears to be a particularly good fit. Barb Gahry had not played in years when she found Dunnick online after misplacing a referral list. She described what she needed most: 'patience, understanding and flexibility.' She found all three, and later sent her neighbor Dave Swanson to Dunnick as well. That kind of word-of-mouth referral surfaces in more than one review, suggesting the results are consistent enough that students feel comfortable vouching for her by name.
Dunnick offers lessons in 30-minute or one-hour blocks, once weekly or more often by arrangement, taught on a grand piano. She is a member of both the Music Teachers National Association and the North American Music Teachers Association. Her teaching emphasis, as she describes it, is on technique and expressive playing — two things that a conservatory-trained competition winner would naturally prioritize, and that her students' progress appears to bear out.
“Having taught school for 30 years, I can recognize quality teaching. Debbie is intelligent, articulate, patient, a great communicator, and keeps it all fun at the same time. I practice more than ever and look forward to my lessons with her.”
— Charlene Moeckel, adult student, North Venice, FL
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