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Co-Director Robin Johnson studied violin "traditionally" from fourth grade through college. She was in the Symphony Orchestra at Brigham Young University. Several years later, a friend who taught junior high orchestra encouraged her to become trained in the Suzuki Method™, explaining that the orchestra students who had had "Suzuki training" were superior in every aspect of music - intonation, posture, musicality, etc.
Mrs. Johnson joined the Suzuki Music Program of Los Angeles in 1992 and has been affiliated with it since that time - as a student, parent, teacher, and Co-Director since 2013. She received her Suzuki Teacher Training from nationally renowned Suzuki teacher Liz Arbus while attending summer Suzuki Institutes. She has also attended numerous teacher training seminars offered through the Suzuki Music Association of California/Los Angeles Branch. Mrs. Johnson teaches in her home in Montrose and also in students' homes, depending on the location. She graduated from Brigham Young University in 1982 with a BA in Human Resource Development, and in 1984 with an MBA. She received her Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) degree from University of Pennsylvania in 2020. You may contact her at [email protected] and at (818) 458-9525. |
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Molly White is a long-time meditator, teacher and musician. She brings secular mindfulness practices to her teaching as a music specialist in preschools, individual and group Suzuki lessons, and her leadership as Co-Director of the Suzuki Music Program of Los Angeles. Molly has a Master’s degree from UT Austin in Ethnomusicology. She performs as a singer, songwriter, string player in creative projects around LA, and leads the Kids Fiddle Jam each year at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest. Molly grew up a Suzuki violin student and began teaching Suzuki guitar and violin in 2013.
Molly recently completed pre-Twinkle violin training in Kaleidoscopes with Elise Winters, and has previously trained in Music Together and Music Mind Games. She has studied Suzuki violin pedagogy with Liz Arbus, Charles Krigbaum, Ed Sprunger, and Susan McDonald, and guitar pedagogy with Andrea Canon and David Madsen. She has spent many years learning fiddle tunes from Rebecca Stout and David Braggar and other teachers at Walker Creek Folk Music Camp. Molly teaches guitar, violin, and song writing at her home studios in Encino/Sherman Oaks and on Zoom. Molly also writes music for children under the name Peach & Spoon. Contact her at [email protected] or 917-703-1096. |
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Michele Karin Nardone Ratajczak began her Violin, Piano, & Conducting studies at a very early age. Her Violin teacher strongly recommended that she become a concert/professional musician. Upon high school graduation, MIchele then received a music scholarship for Violin to the prestigious Thornton School of Music at The University of Southern California. Graduating from the “Deans List with Distinction” Michele was invited to become the Concertmaster of The Los Angeles Debut Orchestra Lalo Schifrin Director. Michele was then invited to become a Recording Artist and join the Studio Orchestra of Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox Studios. Contact Michele at [email protected]
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Marisa McLeod, violinist, a native of Newark, New Jersey, began her studies of the violin at the age of three. She received her Bachelor of Music degree at Montclair State University, and her Master of Music degree from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. She studied the Suzuki method and received her Suzuki certification from the Eastman School under Anastasia Jempelis. She has continued her Suzuki studies up to Book 10 with Cathryn Lee, Edmund Sprunger, Sherry Cadow, Martha Shackford and Mark Bjork.
She was a member of the Anderson String Quartet for ten years. She has studied the art of string quartet playing with the Cleveland Quartet with Peter Salaff as her private teacher, Juilliard String Quartet, American String Quartet, and William Fitzpatrick of Le Quatuor de Deux Monde, in Fontainebleau, France. She presently performs with Channel Islands Chamber Ensemble, California Philharmonic, Santa Barbara Symphony, and various orchestras in Southern California. She is presently a Suzuki and Strings instructor at the Viewpoint School in Calabasas. She also conducts the Camerata and Philharmonia Orchestras for the Education Division of the Santa Barbara Symphony. She also maintains a private violin and viola studio in her home and on Zoom. For Marisa, performance is sustenance. She relishes the interdependence between art , the artist and the audience. And as a teacher and coach, she finds herself in the enviable position of being able to pass on to others the how-to of creating this loving relationship. To inquire about lessons: (626) 806-4449, [email protected] |
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