Marilou Padilla Gallardo Piano/Organ/Keyboard Studio

From a UNESCO Fellowship to 90 Students in Oxon Hill: How Marilou Gallardo Built One of DC's Most Recognized Piano Studios

When Marilou Padilla Gallardo opened her piano and keyboard studio in Oxon Hill, Maryland in 1990, she brought with her a credential few music teachers anywhere can claim: a UNESCO Fellowship Award for music studies, earned in 1977. More than three decades later, the Marilou Padilla Gallardo Piano/Organ/Keyboard Studio has grown to serve over 90 students drawn from across the greater Washington DC area, Southern Maryland, and Northern Virginia — a reach that reflects both the studio's reputation and its unusually broad scope of instruction.

The studio covers piano, organ, electronic organ, keyboard harmony, jazz improvisation, and music theory, and takes students from age four through advanced levels. Lesson programs are built around a structured mix of method studies, theory, sight reading, technique, and repertoire — calibrated to each student's graded level. The concert repertoire Gallardo assigns spans classical, jazz, gospel, religious, Latin, Filipino, and contemporary popular music, which helps explain why students come from such a wide geographic range. Saturday hours run from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and online lessons are available via Skype, FaceTime, and Google Duo for students who cannot come in person.

Gallardo's teaching career predates the studio itself. From 1982 to 1990, she served as a keyboard teaching specialist at Jordan Kitt Music, earning the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award five times — in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1989. In 2003, she received the Jordan Kitt Music Grant, since renamed the Judith Ferencz Memorial Grant, which the Maryland State Music Teachers Association awards in recognition of teacher excellence in student development. She has also worked as an adjudicator for Yamaha Keyboard Festivals across the Washington DC region and served on the international jury of the World Pedagogy Piano Conference piano competition in Atlanta in 2006.

Students and their families consistently point to the quality of her explanations and her genuine attentiveness in lessons. Tiffany, a student from Springfield, notes that she always leaves with something new: 'I love coming to lessons as I always get a fresh insight in my music. Mrs. Gallardo explains the dynamic markings of the music so well.' That specificity — working through how a piece should be shaped and felt, not just played — is something that comes through in other reviews as well. Robert, a student from Capitol Heights, sums up the experience in four words: 'Excellent and very detailed instruction.'

Beyond the studio, Gallardo founded MPG Keyboard Artists and Friends, Inc. in 2002, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization focused on promoting awareness of the keyboard performing arts through cultural and concert community events. She is a member of the Maryland State Music Teachers Association, the Music Teachers National Association, the Prince George's County Music Association, and the National Guild of Piano Teachers. The studio has been rated among the top 20 teaching studios in the metropolitan Washington DC area each year from 2016 through 2020 for excellence, professionalism, and expertise in piano and keyboard instruction.

For families in the DC metro area looking for structured, genre-flexible piano or keyboard instruction, the studio operates year-round, Monday through Friday from 2:00 to 10:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tanya, from Fort Washington, whose niece studies with Gallardo, puts it plainly: 'Ms. Marilou is a very patient and good instructor who genuinely cares about her students.'

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