Gail Berenson is Professor of Piano at Ohio University, Athens, having served as Keyboard Division Chair for twenty-three years. She was awarded the “Distinguished Teacher of the Year” Award in 2000. Prior to her arrival at Ohio University in 1975, she taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana. An active performer and passionate chamber music collaborator, she performs with the Cardinal Trio with Ohio University colleagues, Marjorie Bagley, violin and Michael Carrera, cello and with flutist, Alison Brown Sincoff, as a member of the Ohio University Lyric Duo. As a result of her distinguished work as a piano pedagogue, along with her reputation as an expert on musician wellness issues, she is much in demand as a performer, clinician, master class artist, adjudicator, author, reviewer and pedagogy consultant. She has performed and lectured in over thirty states, as well as Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Israel, Portugal and Canada. She was a presenter at the European Piano Teachers Conference in Manchester, England in 2005 and in Funchal, Madeira in 2006.

Ms. Berenson began to build a reputation as a performing artist early when at age eleven she began accompanying the forty-member male chorus conducted by her piano teacher, appearing in concert throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. A native of Kenosha, Wisconsin, she continued her education at Northwestern University, completing degrees in piano performance, studying piano with Louis Crowder and Guy Duckworth. She also performed in master classes with world-renowned accompanist Gerald Moore, baritone Pierre Bernac, duo-pianists Vronsky and Babin and, at the Lucerne International Music Festival, with pianist and accomplished chamber musician, Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

Ms. Berenson is one of the co-authors of A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers: Strategies to Develop Mind and Body for Optimal Performance and, as a member of the Lorenz Advisory Board she contributed to the innovative piano method, Piano Discoveries, and is co-author of “Ask the Professor”. She also authored a chapter entitled, “Music Medicine and Today's Piano Teachers,” for the third edition of James Lyke's book, Creative Piano Teaching. A frequent author for Keyboard Companion, she has also written for the on-line journal, Piano Pedagogy Forum and served as a contributing editor to Piano & Keyboard.

She is the national President of Music Teachers National Association, an association of 24,000 members. She has also held the position of President-Elect, Vice President, Chair of the 2002 and 2003 MTNA National Conference Committees, served on the 1996 and 1997 Conference Committees and was one of the founding members of the MTNA Pedagogy Committee. She has held several national posts with the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy and the World Piano Pedagogy Conference and has chaired National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy's Wellness for Pianists Committee. A past president of the Ohio Music Teachers Association, she holds MTNA's Master Certificate in piano and piano pedagogy and was the recipient of the 1999 OMTA "Certified Teacher of the Year" award and the 2004 OMTA "Collegiate Teacher of the Year" award. Her students are performing and teaching in independent studios and on college faculties throughout the world.