Minuetta Shumiatcher Borek Kessler (September 5, 1914 – November 30, 2002) was a Russian-born Canadian and later American concert pianist, classical music composer, and educator.

A child prodigy, she performed her first composition at a recital at the age of 5 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York City.

She composed hundreds of pieces, including music for piano, violin, voice, flute, clarinet and cello, as well as for chamber ensembles.

[1] She also taught musical composition to young children, creating and patenting a game called "Staftonia" for this purpose.

She was born Minuetta Shumiatcher in Gomel, Russia,[2] the eldest child of Abraham Isaac Shumiatcher, a lawyer who attended the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and was appointed a Queen's Counsel, and his wife, Luba Lubinsky,[3] a graduate of the University of Warsaw who worked as a tutor for children in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

[9][10][11] Minuetta was recognized as a child prodigy at the age of 5, when she performed her own composition in a piano recital held by the studio of John M. Williams and Shaylor Turner.

[12] The following year, at age 6, she performed another original composition at the annual recital, which also featured her aunt,[13] 10-year-old Bella Shumiatcher.

[2] Kessler composed hundreds of pieces,[9] including music for piano, violin, voice, flute, clarinet and cello, as well as for chamber ensembles.

[2] The Boston Globe described her keyboard technique as "formidable" and The Christian Science Monitor praised her "dash and verve" and "ear for color".

[9] After the 1947 premiere of her Alberta Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, the L'Événement-Journal wrote that she "plays with a power rarely attained by women pianists".

[5] She specialized in teaching musical composition to young children, creating and patenting a game called "Staftonia" (1960) for this purpose.

[2][19] In the late 1970s and early 1980s she published numerous composition books, including Savory Suite (1980), The Improper Grasshopper (1980), Cat 'n Mouse Tails (1981), Playful Squirrels (1981), A Day in the Park (1981), Jewish Easy Piano Pieces (1981), My Toys (1982), and Come to the Circus!