Piano Tree: A Sight Reading App Built by Piano Teachers and Engineers
Most students struggle with sight reading not because of lack of ability, but because of the way they practice. Practice becomes memorisation. Students stop every time they make a mistake, work on material that is too difficult, and never develop the ability to read music in real time.
Piano Tree was built to change that. By combining structured progression, real-time feedback, and genuine musical practice, it helps students develop the skills that actually matter: reading ahead, staying in time, and playing without stopping. This is how real sight reading works, and it is why we built this piano learning app the way we did.
Our team
The People Behind Piano Tree
Four people, two disciplines. Between us: teaching studios, concert stages, and engineering teams. Piano Tree is the product of all of it.
Tomas Iglesias
Piano Teacher, Composer & Director, School of Musical Arts
Tomas Iglesias is a piano educator, composer, and director of the School of Musical Arts in Auckland, New Zealand. In over 15 years of teaching, he has guided hundreds of students to distinctions and university music programmes, working from one conviction: music is a language, learned by reading and understanding it. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Auckland, has scored more than 30 film, documentary, and game projects, and conducted orchestral, jazz, and choral ensembles. Tomas is also the founder of Piano Tree, a sight-reading platform built from his teaching.
Victor Nocelli
Piano Teacher, Pianist, Composer & Producer
Victor Nocelli specialises in tango and popular music. As a performer and conductor he has appeared on major stages in Buenos Aires, across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has worked as a session pianist on international cruise lines. He has worked as a music producer and transcriber across advertising, short films, music videos, and theatre, collaborating with a wide range of independent artists. With over 15 years of teaching experience, Victor is also the founder and co-creator of Tango Piano Secrets, an educational platform offering courses, ebooks, and online content in both Spanish and English.
Benjamin Calace
Software Engineer & Pianist
Benjamin is a software engineer and one of the developers behind Piano Tree. As a pianist with a strong interest in classical and baroque repertoire, he uses the app extensively in his own practice. His direct experience as a user helps ensure that Piano Tree is not only technically robust, but also practical and effective for real musicians. The features that matter most to players are the ones that get built first.
Guillermo Caserotto
Systems Engineer & Pianist
Guillermo Caserotto is a systems engineer and dedicated pianist with a strong passion for classical music and tango. He combines technical expertise with musical understanding to help build tools that are both powerful and genuinely accessible for students and teachers. Having learned piano himself through structured practice, he brings a student's perspective to every technical decision the team makes.
Tomas Iglesias
Piano Teacher, Composer & Director, School of Musical Arts
Tomas Iglesias is a piano educator, composer, and director of the School of Musical Arts in Auckland, New Zealand. In over 15 years of teaching, he has guided hundreds of students to distinctions and university music programmes, working from one conviction: music is a language, learned by reading and understanding it. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Auckland, has scored more than 30 film, documentary, and game projects, and conducted orchestral, jazz, and choral ensembles. Tomas is also the founder of Piano Tree, a sight-reading platform built from his teaching.
Victor Nocelli
Piano Teacher, Pianist, Composer & Producer
Victor Nocelli specialises in tango and popular music. As a performer and conductor he has appeared on major stages in Buenos Aires, across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has worked as a session pianist on international cruise lines. He has worked as a music producer and transcriber across advertising, short films, music videos, and theatre, collaborating with a wide range of independent artists. With over 15 years of teaching experience, Victor is also the founder and co-creator of Tango Piano Secrets, an educational platform offering courses, ebooks, and online content in both Spanish and English.
Benjamin Calace
Software Engineer & Pianist
Benjamin is a software engineer and one of the developers behind Piano Tree. As a pianist with a strong interest in classical and baroque repertoire, he uses the app extensively in his own practice. His direct experience as a user helps ensure that Piano Tree is not only technically robust, but also practical and effective for real musicians. The features that matter most to players are the ones that get built first.
Guillermo Caserotto
Systems Engineer & Pianist
Guillermo Caserotto is a systems engineer and dedicated pianist with a strong passion for classical music and tango. He combines technical expertise with musical understanding to help build tools that are both powerful and genuinely accessible for students and teachers. Having learned piano himself through structured practice, he brings a student's perspective to every technical decision the team makes.
Our approach
How We Think About Sight Reading
Sight reading is not a talent. It is a skill that can be trained systematically, but only when practiced under the right conditions. Most students never develop it because the standard approach to piano practice works against it.
Every feature in Piano Tree is built around five principles that our combined teaching experience has shown to be essential:
These are the same principles we explore in depth in our sight reading guide, a practical resource for anyone serious about improving their piano sight reading.
Our goal
What We're Trying to Do
Our goal is straightforward: to help pianists develop the ability to sit down at the piano, open a piece of music they have never seen before, and play it with confidence.
That ability changes how you experience the instrument. It makes learning new repertoire faster, playing with others easier, and the whole practice more musical. It is the skill most piano students never fully develop, not because they lack talent, but because no one ever built the right tool to help them practice it properly.
That is what we built Piano Tree to do.