Maria del Pico Taylor, gifted pianist and award-winning Temple professor of piano, has died at 89

Maria del Pico Taylor, 89, of Philadelphia, lifelong gifted pianist, retired award-winning professor of piano at Temple University, founder of Latin Fiesta Inc., and cofounder of the Dorothy Taubman Seminar at Temple, died Thursday, March 13, of complications from dementia at her home in Roxborough.

Professor Taylor was an expert in Spanish and Latin American music and piano pedagogy, and she taught piano in Temple’s Department of Keyboard Studies in the Boyer College of Music and Dance for 50 years. From 1974 to her retirement in 2024, she worked with thousands of students, collaborated on pioneering music projects, expanded performance opportunities for musicians, and introduced new music to audiences around the world.

A former colleague called her “a remarkable woman who was a valuable member of the Temple University family” in an online tribute, and several former students made recent visits to serenade her with her favorite songs. “It’s not an understatement to say she is the reason I stayed with music and piano,” a former student said in a tribute. “She is the yardstick by which I measure my own piano teaching to this day. I still remember my first lesson with her: legato leaps in Debussy.”

In 1995, Professor Taylor created Latin Fiesta, a nine-member ensemble that sang, danced, and played Latin American and Spanish music at venues in Philadelphia, Wilmington, New York, and elsewhere. She headlined many of the group’s shows on piano, organized its annual Hispanic Festival, and premiered Hispanic works in Philadelphia with the Temple University Symphony Orchestra and Pennsylvania Pro Musica Orchestra.

She served as artistic adviser for a Hispanic American music celebration at Penn’s Landing in November 1987 and told The Inquirer: “I’m a great lover of the diversity of cultures in Philadelphia. In the last few years, it seems there has been more and more of it. I just love these festivals.”

She studied piano under several celebrated teachers, including Dorothy Taubman, and cofounded the Taubman Seminar at Temple in 2003. For years, she instructed two dozen students every May about the unique “Taubman Approach” to piano performance.

She also lectured about Taubman’s playing techniques at seminars in Scotland, Brazil, Finland, and Peru, and she wrote articles about it for music journals. Seminar colleagues called her “our dear teacher, mentor, friend, and founder” in an online tribute.

Professor Taylor was active with the Taubman Institute of Piano, Music Teachers National Association, National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, and other groups. She earned a 1984 Lindback Award for distinguished teaching at Temple, was named 1994 Teacher of the Year by the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association, and was recognized for her achievements by the Ibero-America Foundation and the International Who’s Who for music and women.

“She was fun and fiery,” said her son-in-law, Greg Watson. “She was always active and ready to experience.”

Maria Carlotta del Pico was born May 7, 1935, in Havana. Her father gifted her a secondhand piano when she was 6. Later, when she had to choose between careers in music or law, she chose music.

She was the first Cuban to be awarded a music grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and earned a degree in piano at the University of Toronto. Later, she earned a master’s degree in piano performance at Northwestern University in Chicago.

She met violinist Raymond Taylor in Canada, and they married in 1963 and moved to Chicago and Arizona before settling in Roxborough. They had a daughter, Vania, in 1969. Her husband died in 2020, and her daughter died in 2022.

Professor Taylor was fluent in English, Spanish, and French, and she and her husband traveled to France, Poland, England, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere to teach and play music together. Friends and colleagues called her “warm” and “a delightful conversationalist” in tributes, and she hosted salons to discuss art, literature, philosophy, music, and politics.

A longtime friend praised her “incredible friendship, love, and loyalty,” and she is a featured figure on a huge mural at Julia de Burgos Elementary School on Lehigh Avenue. “You made so much possible for countless numbers of people, and we are all the better for it,” a former colleague said.

Her son-in-law said: “She was a great human being, a great mother-in-law.”

In addition to her son-in-law, Professor Taylor is survived by a sister and other relatives.

A visitation with family is to be from 10 to 10:50 a.m. Saturday, May 17, at Boyd-Horrox-Givnish Life Celebration Home, 200 W. Germantown Pike, Norristown, Pa. 19401.

Donations in her name may be made to the Dorothy Taubman Seminar, 2001 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19122.