Clint Cancio
- Early Childhood Piano
Pre-College
Q&A
What is your hometown?
South San Francisco
What is your favorite recording? Why?
Henry Cowell’s The Banshee performed by the composer. Halloween is my favorite holiday and it creates the perfect eerie vibe, from the spooky spoken introduction to his otherworldly performance.
What are you passionate about outside of music?
Baking, crochet and other yarn arts
What question do you wish students would ask sooner rather than later?
How to practice more effectively.
What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?
Performing Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Oakland Youth Symphony.
What was a turning point in your career?
Finding my love and passion for teaching after completing my performance degree.
If you weren't a musician or teacher, what do you think you would be doing now?
Writing cozy mystery novels.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
Brahms, Beethoven, Scriabin
From a music history perspective, what year and city are most important to you, and why?
San Francisco, 1964, the premier of “In C” by Terry Riley… ushering the minimalist movement in music.
What do you think makes a concert experience unique?
The performers’ unique perspective.
Biography
Clint Cancio resides and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area, where his students have gone off to such illustrious universities as Princeton, Brown and NYU. Clint authored and published “The Music Fairies and the Tiny Little Door,” which is a children’s book and teaching tool used to gently encourage students as they learn to play their instruments. He is experienced working with students of all ages and levels, and has taught at Notre Dame de Namur University, Crestmont Conservatory of Music, Tunelark, and Inspire Music Center.