Derrick began playing the drums at the age of 8 in the elementary school concert band. He started out on just a snare drum but when he was 12, he got his first real drum set, and started a life of music.

Fast forward a few years and Derrick had experience playing in jazz bands, marching bands, concert bands, steel pan calypso band, along with his local garage band. After high school, Derrick moved to California to attend the Musicians Institutes in Hollywood California. There he studied under some of the greatest professionals in the business, and was exposed to a wide variety of music styles ranging from, Latin, R&B, Jazz, Funk, Rock, etc.

After graduating from school, Derrick moved back to chicago where he has been playing weekly gigs, and touring around the country with his bands. Derrick is a young, energetic, but most importantly, patient drummer, who loves to share his craft with the world.

My Story:

As a guitarist in my early years I spent much time reworking my technique and gaining insight in how guitar playing really works. My early struggles gave way to a solid knowledge of the guitar and music.

This was gained through no small part through my High School music teacher, through master classes of Manuel Lopez Ramos and Abel Carlevaro and others.

These master classes helped me in a big way to develop teaching systems and principles that can help anyone to learn guitar easier and more effectively.

You will gain from the knowledge of these world class guitarists and teachers which will help you to play better and more musical.

And from my musical background-of playing hundreds of songs and compositions of many styles and understanding of musical structure.

Teaching philosophy

I will give you simple technical training to help the hands work...

I have been teaching voice students from ages 5 to 80+ for over seven years. Whether your goal is to sing musical theater, with your local church group, in your school choir, or just for fun – I can help you become a better singer and have fun while doing it!
I am a San Francisco Bay Area native and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in music from Santa Clara University, California. I have been singing in choirs for over twelve years in church, university, community, as a paid professional, and notably for three consecutive seasons with the Opera San Jose paid opera chorus. Bay Area credits include Bay Shore Lyric, Lyric Theater of San Jose, West Bay Opera, Notre Dame de Namur University, and Opera San Jose. Favorite roles include Flora (The Medium), Dido (Dido & Aeneas) and Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte). I was the Music Artist-in-Residence at a California Public Elementary School for 3 years where I taught over 500 K-5 students each year.

I am earning my Masters of...

My name is Douglas and I am a classically trained operatic baritone. I received my Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory, and my Master of Music from the University of Illinois. I have performed all over the world, including venues in Italy and Austria. I have studied and sung for operatic greats such as Nathan Gunn, Marilyn Horne, and Cynthia Haymon.

I have been teaching out of a private studio for the past four years, including a studio of 25 students a year ago. I am very passionate about teaching and instilling all that I've learned in my professional career. I am very demanding as a teacher, but I also create a fun atmosphere so that my students can feel comfortable and at ease.

While my background is in classical music, I love teaching musical theater and have plenty of experience in that genre as well.

I've been playing jazz professionally in the Chicago area since 1979. I have loved the sound of the piano since hearing it on jazz records as a teenager. I grew up in Michigan and after spending a year at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, I started playing in jazz clubs around Lansing. Since coming to Chicago, I've played in all its major clubs including the Jazz Showcase, the Green Mill, Pops for Champagne, Leslee's, Green Dolphin Street, Pete Miller's, Rick's Cafe Americain, and others. I recently released my first CD, which includes two of my own jazz compositions.

I am a certified teacher who has taught, along with high school English and college English and ESL, instrumental ensemble and music appreciation classes in schools and years of individual lessons in piano, flute and saxophone. I also taught piano in Beni-Mellal, Morocco while with the Peace Corps. As a second job I played clavinola regularly for my church for eight years, as well as accompanying the choir and performing at weddings. I also accompanied concerts and played for graduation ceremonies at the high school where I taught, and have played with professional musicians onstage. Music has been one of the great joys in my life and my purpose in teaching is to convey to the student what a joy it is.

Elizabeth has taught violin and viola for twenty years. She has a Master of Music degree in Violin Performance from DePaul University School of Music. Her teachers have been among the best in the world. She has been a member of orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and has performed solos throughout the United States and abroad. Teaching is one of her greatest passions, and she welcomes the opportunity to work with all ages and levels of musical background.

Michael, a baritone hailing from Brodhead, WI, is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning his Master’s degree in Opera. Michael played the title role in Don Giovanni, Marcello in La Bohème, John Sorel in The Consul, and Marco in Gianni Schicchi under the direction of William Farlow. In addition to University Opera, Michael has been an apprentice artist at Des Moines Metro Opera, and was also a frequent young artist at La Music Lirica, performing under the baton of Joseph Rescigno. Michael is excited to play the role of Bill Bobstay in H.M.S. Pinafore with Light Opera Works in June.

In concert, Michael has performed Handel’s Messiah with Janesville Orchestra, as a concerto competition winner at UW-Madison and UW-Whitewater, and as Adam in Haydn’s Creation with the Wisconsin Chamber Choir led by Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck. Michael was scholarship soloist/section leader at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison, WI and is currently a section leader at...

Jeff has emerged as a versatile and powerful musical force. His talents as an interpreter of new, old and diverse styles have made him uniquely suited to promoting new music, transcriptions and jazz improvisation.

Some of Jeff’s most recent efforts in chamber music have proven fruitful. His saxophone quartet, the Estrella Consort recently returned from a nine-day tour of Ecuador and has been invited to perform in the prestigious Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. His trio, Trikaya, was awarded the 2012 Music Teachers of North America’s second prize for woodwind chamber music.

Jeff played lead alto saxophone in the Arizona State University Concert Jazz Band. His abilities as a jazz artist and as a woodwind specialist earned him a position with the 2011 touring production of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. He also conducted the Scottsdale Musical Theater Company production of Guys and Dolls.

Jeff is passionate about teaching music as well. In...

I'm passionate about both music and people in equal measures - which I why I love teaching music!
Getting started in music can be a daunting experience, but my main goal as a teacher is to make music as effortless and fun as possible. Whether you're just beginning or have been involved in music for some time, I can meet you where you are and help you reach your goals. We all may want to study music with different goals in mind, but we all come to it for the same reason - we love it! I can teach you the mechanics music and help you to develop your own passion for it.
My History:
I've lived all over the world, played in countless ensembles and settings, and have an ever-broadening interest in different musics of the world (which influence my own work as a composer).
I played horn in the U.S. Army Band four 4 years before coming to Chicago and learning this city's way of doing things on the instrument. I studied horn with Oto Carillo (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Jon Boen...

Sophia is a recent graduate of the Eastman School of Music where she studied Vocal Performance under the tutelage of Professor Robert Swensen. Her recent accomplishments include being a finalist in the Jesse Kneisel German Lieder competition and winning the Ornest award for academic and musical excellence. This past fall and winter she performed back to back roles with the Eastman Opera Theater, singing Lucretia, in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, and Medoro, in Handel's Orlando. At Eastman she took courses in Italian, French and German language and diction as well as vocal pedagogy. She also was the alto section leader at Saint Paul's Episcopal church in Rochester, NY.

Currently she is living and working in Evanston, IL, sharing her knowledge and passion for music with others through teaching and performing.

About Me

I began playing piano at an early age, “making it up as I went along,” while my father would improvise melodies on the guitar. Later, I would come home from church and try to play the songs I had heard while I was there. This was the beginning of a love for music that has blossomed in the years since. I attended Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, MN, where I was an active participant in the choir and other musical ensembles. There, my desire to create new music was encouraged. After Bethany, I went on to Concordia University, in River Forest, to complete a Bachelor of Music degree, studying Composition and Music Theory. At Concordia, I was given the opportunity to work with such Church Music composers as Richard Hillert and Carl Schalk. I composed several pieces there, including a piece for the Kapelle choir of the university.

Since college, I have written a setting of the Mass, arranged and orchestrated songs for a new musical by Huck Walton and Johnny...