UnALASKA/DUTCH HARBOR PIANO STUDENTS OF LYNDA LYBECK-RO

Lynda is an alum of the International performing group Up With People (1981-82, Cast B) where, as a member of the orchestra as well as singing and dancing, she traveled with her cast throughout the southern and eastern United States, and internationally to Columbia and Peru. Their cast joined 4 others in entertaining millions around the world at the 1982 televised Super Bowl halftime show in Pontiac, Michigan. After the year long tour, she earned her Bachelor of Arts at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, with an emphasis on classical piano performance and composition, choral arranging, and accompanying, and songwriting.

Lynda spent her 20’s traveling the world as a singer/songwriter. In 1996, to take a break from her touring schedule, Lynda arrived in Unalaska, Alaska for a 10-week piano bar contract at the Grand Aleutian Hotel. Within days, she was teaching island students piano lessons in their homes. During that period, Lynda started the island's first professional piano studio, supported by the City of Unalaska community center, who provided a piano borrowed from the school, and small storage room for teaching. 

Lynda returned to Unalaska in 2002 as a guest concert artist. It was at this concert that she met Unalaska local Dennis Robinson. Four months later, they were married, and she returned permanently to the Aleutians and to teaching Unalaska piano students of all ages. 

In 2009, the community center was remodeled, moving Lynda’s music room from the storage closet to a large music room which also included a grand piano donated by the Robinsons. In 2012, Lynda was published for the first time by Hal Leonard Corporation. Her piece, Williwaw, was selected by the National Federation of Music Clubs for the featured 2014-16 catalogue. She now has several books and over 50 original piano solos and arrangements published by Hal Leonard Corporation, the world's leading publisher of sheet music and music-educational books.

 

Lynda continues to teach piano in Unalaska while composing with and for her students. In 2024 she was elected President of the Kenai Central Peninsula Music Teachers and the State President for Alaska Federation of Music Clubs and works closely with teachers on the mainland providing opportunities for rural piano students to participate in state adjudications.