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<\/p>\nIn more ways than one, this is a love story, and it begins in 1970.<\/p>\n
Paul Cummins, headmaster of a Santa Monica elementary school called St. Augustine-by-the-Sea, was in the market for a music teacher and a colleague suggested he call a Rustic Canyon pianist named Mary Ann.<\/p>\n
Mary Ann wasn\u2019t interested in the job but agreed to host a get-together at her home and introduce Cummins to two teachers. But Cummins didn\u2019t want the other two. He wanted Mary Ann.<\/p>\n
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At 93, Cummins teaches at multiple schools and as a private piano instructor.<\/p>\n
(David Butow \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just seen the best teacher I\u2019ve ever seen in my life,\u201d he told a friend after visiting Mary Ann and hearing about her teaching techniques.<\/p>\n
Cummins talked Mary Ann into taking the job, and before long, she joined the faculty of a brand-new middle school Cummins co-founded by the name of Crossroads.<\/p>\n
That was in 1971.<\/p>\n
But 1972 was a year of new beginnings, too. That was the year Paul and Mary Ann got married.<\/p>\n
Fifty-five years later, Mr. and Mrs. Cummins live together in the house where they met. And Mary Ann is still teaching at Crossroads, among other places.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s 93 and she\u2019s got the energy of a teenager,\u201d Paul Cummins, 88, said of his wife. \u201cShe\u2019s kind of a freak of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
I can attest to that after spending several hours with her on Tuesday, hustling to keep up as she taught at two schools and then hurried home to greet her private students.<\/p>\n
At St. Anne School in Santa Monica, I watched Cummins harness the squirmy energy of second-graders wielding xylophone mallets. She\u2019s been using the Orff Schulwerk Approach<\/a> for decades, in which students create music in something of a percussion-driven jamboree of singing, dancing and moving.<\/p>\n Music teacher Mary Ann Cummins works with second-graders at St. Anne\u2019s Elementary School.<\/p>\n (David Butow \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n \u201cTwo, three, four,\u201d Cummins counted down, and her eager little ensemble broke into song: \u201cThis little light of mine, I\u2019m gonna let it shine.\u201d<\/p>\n When the session was done, Cummins, who bakes more cookies than Famous Amos, sent each of her students out the door with a treat.<\/p>\n Next stop, Crossroads School, where the level of musicianship rose several notches. A high school keyboard class came first, followed by a music theory class, and Cummins handled both like a conductor leading an orchestra, showering her students with \u201cbravos.\u201d<\/p>\n And then I followed Cummins home to watch her give lessons to two of her 18 or so private students. One, a 7-year-old girl named Birdie, was accompanied by her mother, who sat at the same piano stool a generation ago as a student.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, there is something genetically askew,\u201d said Emily Cummins Polk, the youngest of Mary Ann Cummins\u2019 four daughters. \u201cShe has incredible genes, but you can\u2019t discount the fact that she\u2019s up at 6 and going to yoga. She\u2019s active seven days a week \u2026 and I don\u2019t think she has any intention of slowing down.\u201d<\/p>\n I told Polk her mother seemed equally adept working with second-graders and high school students, and that her age does not appear to be something anyone is conscious of, including the teacher. That\u2019s partly because \u2014 especially with the advanced classical musicians \u2014 teacher and students are speaking the same language. But there\u2019s more to it than that.<\/p>\n Mary Ann Cummins works with Cara Cheng, 10, at Cummins\u2019 home.<\/p>\n (David Butow \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s because she has so many passions \u2026 and still approaches the world with the curiosity of a child,\u201d Polk said. \u201cIf she sees something in pop culture that the kids relate to, she has to understand it. She\u2019s in every world, whether it\u2019s politics, movies, yoga, gourmet cooking, the Dodgers. \u2026 She just has a crazy lust for life.\u201d<\/p>\n Polk said that when she was a child, her parents were plugged into a pipeline of international musicians who needed a place to stay while studying in the U.S. They opened their home, for months at a time and sometimes longer, Polk said, creating a vast extended family that has kept close ties.<\/p>\n Anna Cummins, another of the four daughters, said music was a tool her mother used to teach \u201clife lessons, way beyond piano or music theory.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe weaves in literature and philosophy and emphasizes the point that music should make you a more whole person,\u201d Anna said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about being a concert pianist. It\u2019s about … connecting to something spiritual that\u2019s bigger than yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n When she was a young violinist, Anna said, her mother taught her that to keep improving, she\u2019d have to set her ego aside and accept mistakes as part of the bargain. Anna\u2019s daughter, now 13, takes lessons from her grandmother.<\/p>\n It should be noted that Paul Cummins is no slacker himself. The longtime teacher, headmaster and arts advocate is still involved with schools he helped launch after Crossroads, including Camino Nuevo Charter and the Tree Academy. And he\u2019s the founder of P.S. Arts, a nonprofit funded initially by musician Herb Alpert to help fill the gap in arts education for thousands of public school students.<\/p>\n Mary Ann and Paul Cummins with their dog, Charley, at their Santa Monica home.<\/p>\n (David Butow \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n![\"Music](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774165589_721_.jpeg\")
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