Biography of Juliana Kuo
A Little Words About Juliana Kuo
- Nationally Certified Piano Teacher since 1990
- Steinway Top Piano Teacher in America 2018
- Steinway & Son’s Teacher Hall of Fame 2019 New York HQ
Steinway Piano 2018 Top Music Teacher in America
Juliana Kuo, a five-time award-winning music educator from Fairfax, Virginia, graduated with honors from National Taiwan Normal University, an institution with one of the best music departments in Taiwan. Back in 1986, Ms. Kuo immigrated to the United States and where she studied piano at George Mason University (GMU) with the late Elvin Schmitt and Julliard graduate prodigy Edward Newman.
In 1995, Ms. Kuo received her master degree in piano performance from GMU, where she served as a Teaching Assistant and Adjunct Professor from 1990-1996. Since then, she has been a tireless advocate of GMU and its faithful alumni. One of her student’s father’s donations led to the Melton Music Teaching Scholarship ($180,000), the first large scholarship for the music department that provided 30 scholarships to deserving students from 1999-2002. Ms. Kuo then served as a director of GMU Alumni Board from 1998-2000, eventually becoming a recipient of the GMU Alumni Service Award in 1999.
one to one private piano lessons to students
In 2005, Mrs. Kuo joined Friends of Music as a steering board member for GMU. This non-profit organization under the College of Visual and Performing Arts has raised millions dollars for the School of Music, resulting in new facilities such as a building that is now an all-Steinway Music School which provided near 60 Steinway grand pianos for students. George Mason University, located in Fairfax, Northern Virginia, is the largest state university in the Washington DC areas, with more than 40,000 students.
As a Permanent Nationally Certified Piano Teacher, Ms. Kuo has served as an Executive Officer of the Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association since 1993. Most of the students who studied under Ms. Kuo took piano lessons until they graduated high school. These elite students won many competitions and performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and Kennedy Center in Washington DC. They went to prestigious colleges like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Cornell, Duke, Carnegie Melon, and UVA. Many of them have become professors, medical doctors, computer engineers, and piano teachers.
A Piano Instructor Like No Other
After 30 years of teaching in Washington DC and Northern Virginia, Juliana’s husband retired from the IT field and moved the whole family to Las Vegas in the summer of 2016. In 2017, Ms. Kuo started Summerlin Piano Studio, and was awarded Top Piano Teacher in Nevada by Steinway & Son in 2018. Mrs. Kuo’s students are winners in local, state and national competitions. In October 2019, she was inducted at the Steinway & Son Piano Company New York Headquarters Teacher Hall of Fame where her name was printed on the world’s finest piano manufactory and headquarters hallway. She is one of the 37 teachers across the country and the first piano teacher from Nevada to receive this lifetime honor.
As of now, Summerlin Piano Studio uses two Steinway grand pianos for teaching; this provides students with the finest musical instrument of its kind and allows students to experience the beautiful sound of the piano on a world class level. This optimization of the learning environment has proven to allow the studio’s students to demonstrate excellence in all events: In the 2025 Silver State Competition, 24 students from Summerlin Piano Studio won from first place to third place. In the 2026 National Junior Festival at UNLV, 21 students were awarded Honors (equivalent to first place). Ranked as the #1 piano studio in Nevada, we are thriving.