I have been a teacher of clarinet, conducting, and music theory for over ten years, and am currently taking new students. My students have raged in age from young children up to adults over 70, with equally varied levels of ability. I currently teach from my home studio in Culver City, California, but am also able to travel within greater Los Angeles.

I have taught clarinet as a substitute at the Third Street Music School Settlement and Hunter College Elementary in New York City, was a woodwind coach for the North Sound Youth Symphony, and served on the faculty of the Marrowstone Music Festival and Burton Music Camp on Vashon Island, Washington. My private students have regularly competed at state-level solo/ensemble competitions.

Please contact me for more information on private lessons.

Teaching Philosophy

I believe that great music-making, the very best music-making, results from the combined influences of another set of three: technical skill, academic understanding, and artistic awareness. These three components must be taught simultaneously in order for the student to understand their combined roles as the means towards the end of informed artistic expression.

The attainment of technical skill is the most straightforward component of the three. This is the work accomplished only through concentrated hours in the practice studio. By reducing to second nature all the complex actions and gestures involved in the physicality of making music, one is able to focus one's attention on the mental and spiritual aspects.

It is not enough to only be able to recreate the sounds prescribed on the musical page. One must know how those sounds work—how they function—and consequently, what they mean. In order to comprehend a spoken or written language, one must first have a grasp of the components that make up that language, beginning with letters, then graduating to words, then to syntax, and so on. The more of these elements at one's disposal, the more meaning emerges from the language. The very same applies to music. And as with language, meanings change depending on historical, social, and political contexts. Only a firm academic understanding of music will result in a true comprehension of the musical language.

Artistic awareness is perhaps the most difficult facet of music-making to achieve. Although it cannot be directly taught in the manner of the other two components, it can be fostered in two ways: first, through immersion in the work of great artists; and second, through a constant, deep questioning of both the self and the music, and also by consciously allowing the music to affect one emotionally. Examining how and why one is moved by music (and embracing the fact that one is moved) creates an opportunity to then extend that understanding into one's own performance, consequently eliciting those same emotional responses in others.

These three distinct, but completely interdependent elements are what elevate the making of music to the level of artistry, and as an educator I believe very strongly that it is not only possible, but crucial to foster them simultaneously—even in beginning students.