About TimeWarp Technologies

George Litterst is a nationally known music educator, clinician, author, performer, and music software developer.

A classically-trained pianist, he completed his undergraduate work in music at Vassar College and subsequently earned his Master’s Degree in piano at the New England Conservatory where he taught as a member of the Preparatory School faculty for 22 years.

In addition to performing on acoustic pianos, George is a MIDI musician. He works extensively with the high-tech Disklavier and Spirio pianos and other MIDI instruments in his teaching, performing, and other professional activities, including music software development. He is co-author of the interactive music display app, SuperScore, the intelligent accompaniment software program, Home Concert Xtreme, the electronic music blackboard program, Classroom Maestro, and the long distance teaching and performance program, Internet MIDI, from TimeWarp Technologies.

Author of more than 100 articles on the application of new technologies in music education, George is a former associate editor for Clavier Companion and co-author of the Tech Connect column (formerly called Random Access) for American Music Teacher.

George lives with his wife, Helen, in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

After over thirty years as a member of the Piano Department at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), Frank Weinstock retired in 2011 to devote more time to his “second career” as a software engineer and creator of music software.  He is the vice president of TimeWarp Technologies, and has been the primary author of the Home Concert family of software, including In Concert (published in 1998 by Cakewalk), Home Concert 2000, and Home Concert Xtreme, winner of the 2010 Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award.

As a pianist, his appearances as recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician have taken him throughout the United States, as well as to South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa, and he has performed with the Tokyo and American String Quartets, as well as conductors Erich Kunzel, Gunther Schuller, Keith Lockhart, and many others.  His former students are themselves prominent performers, competition winners, recording artists, and professors at universities around the world.  He has been a member of the performing faculties at the Aspen and Eastern Music Festivals, the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing, and the Opera Theater and Music Festival of Lucca (Italy), and has been on the jury for such competitions as the Gina Bachauer and Cleveland International Piano Competitions.  At CCM, in addition to teaching piano, he also variously served as Chair of the Piano Department, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Interim Dean of the institution.

He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Janell Weinstock, retired Vice President and General Manager of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Shana Kirk is a pianist, teacher, technology consultant, and arts advocate. Her work draws from a wide range of experiences in music, education, and technology.

With BA and MM degrees from Lipscomb University and the University of Denver, respectively, Shana Kirk has taught piano in both private and group settings. Her teaching embraces modern technologies for learning and motivation.

As a music technology specialist, Ms. Kirk has worked on projects including museum exhibits, children’s outreach programs, and teacher enrichment. She works closely with technology innovators industry- wide, including the Yamaha Corporation of America, to share 21st century tools with the music teaching community.

As a pianist, she has presented audience-friendly, technologically innovative performances nationwide. She is also active as a writer, with music and music-technology based articles appearing in such publications as Clavier Companion and American Music Teacher.

Mrs. Kirk is known for her innovative work applying modern music technologies to music education and performance. She has created a variety of materials for TimeWarp and is known to TimeWarp customers for her support of the products.

George Touchstone is a senior software engineer, photographer, and old-time fiddle player. A graduate of MIT, George has been on the software development team for many interesting projects including scientific applications, data collection, publishing, page design, music games, and high level music applications.

In the 1990s, he lead a group at Eastman Kodak that developed Photo CD and provided a package of software routines to provide programmers access to the images of the Photo CD. Later, he was the Chief Technical Officer for Pilgrim New Media, an early publisher of multimedia tiles for Macintosh and Windows. He was a partner in Magic Mouse Software, a company that developed Adventures in Musicland, a set of software games designed around musical challenges.

In recent years, George has operated his own software business called Sacramento Software Works, offering developer and consultant services to a variety of clients. George has been the lead programmer for TimeWarp’s Classroom Maestro and Internet MIDI programs and was responsible for the port of Home Concert Xtreme to the iPad.

A long time resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, George lives with his wife, Denise Benoit, and is known around town as an old-time fiddle player in a group called the Butter Hounds.

Stella Sick is a classical pianist, trained in the best traditions of the Russian piano school. In addition to teaching piano at Hamline University and managing the International Piano-e-Competition in the Twin Cities, MN, she performs regularly both as a soloist and with musical collaborators.

Dr. Sick received her early music education at the Novosibirsk State Conservatory in Russia, Bachelors and Masters Degrees from the Eastman School of Music, and DMA from the University of Minnesota. She is avidly interested in the music technology and its various applications in teaching and performing. As one of the early adopters of the long distance piano instruction paradigm, she has presented at many national music conferences and often is asked to offer workshops for music teachers.

In the last few years, Dr. Sick has contributed to the growing MIDI library of realistic-sounding orchestral accompaniments for use with Home Concert Xtreme. This library includes orchestral and chamber works suitable for pianists with a wide range of abilities.

Dr. Sick resides in Minneapolis, MN with her family.

Layne Karkruff is the proprietor of Blue Sky Graphics, specializing in logo, web and GUI design since 1997. His skills have included airbrush illustration and calligraphy. Layne is also an untrained, reckless musician and has been impressing no one save himself for far too long, but he has fun.

S. Christian Collins is a pianist, composer and virtual instrument designer currently residing in Oregon, Wisconsin. Possessing degrees from both UW–Stevens Point (BM in piano performance) and the University of Minnesota (master’s in piano performance), Chris has composed music for many different instruments from piano to symphony orchestra, including a full-length ballet. He currently teaches piano and composition out of his home studio and has designed virtual instruments for many music software companies including Acoustica, MuseScore, and currently TimeWarp Technologies.