Seattle Area Piano Teachers

 

Piano Teacher Brent Henderson

Brent Henderson

Brent is a pianist, educator, and founder & owner of Henderson Academy of Music,

He was classically trained on the piano starting at age 6, and started playing rock, jazz, and other contemporary music as a teenager. He has a wide variety of performance experience, having played in rock bands, jazz trios, wedding ceremonies, and most importantly…for his mom on her birthday.

Brent has been teaching piano since the age of 15 and has taught hundreds of students and thousands of lessons over the years. He also teaches electronic music production, specializing in Ableton Live and FL studio.

Lessons with Brent combine a solid musical foundation with repertoire of the student’s choice- whether that be classical, jazz, pop, rock, or anything else. Brent believes that when a student is having fun and playing music they enjoy, they will practice more, progress faster, and stick with lessons longer.

 


Piano, Guitar, & Drum Teacher James Borchers

Piano, Guitar, & Drum Teacher James Borchers

James Borchers

James is a composer and musician with vast experience in multiple genres of music. Many prominent contemporary music ensembles have performed his compositions and he has performed as a musician in many different settings throughout the United States and abroad.

As an active and versatile music educator he has taught numerous courses at the college level including music theory, music technology, world music, class piano, and percussion ensemble. He has also taught a variety of classes and workshops for elementary to high school age children. He is currently the instructor of music at Skagit Valley College. 

Through his teaching, James hopes to inspire students in the pursuit of an individual creative voice that will meaningfully contribute to the larger music community. 

 


Piano, Guitar, Drum, & Voice Teacher Wesley Speight

Piano, Guitar, Drum, & Voice Teacher Wesley Speight

Wesley Speight

Wes Speight, a singer/songwriter originally from Tennessee, has played many of the venues in Seattle WA and Nashville TN and has toured to places such as Vancouver BC, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisville KY, Manchester TN and Manhattan NY. His music varies widely from bluesy to tribal to acoustic rock.

Speight's music career began in his teens, dabbling at piano and drums. He bought his first guitar at 19 and "started writing bad songs right away." He has since become a bit of a musical virtuoso, adding harmonica, bass, synthesizer/keyboard, mandolin, and percussion to his list. He is also a creative film maker who aspires to compose the musical score for a film someday. Music, says Speight, "is my reason."

Speight's first album, Please EP, was released in 2008 under an independent label. Since then he has released 4 more full length albums independently: 2011's Lie & Wish, 2012's Hackneyed and 2014's Transmigration. In addition to teaching guitar, piano, and percussion, Wesley teaches songwriting through the University of Washington Experimental College.


Voice & Piano Teacher Danielle Sampson

Voice & Piano Teacher Danielle Sampson

Danielle Sampson

Danielle, who recently moved to Seattle from San Francisco, teaches piano and voice. She grew up singing in church choirs and accompanying her school music groups. She studied classical voice at the Lamont School of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and has made a career of performing baroque music. She performs regularly with early music ensembles in the area, and has collaborated with local composers and jazz musicians. Offstage, however, she loves to sing pop, rock, and blues. She is featured on Makeunder's Great Headless Blank EP. 

Danielle teaches to share the pure joy of music. She helps her students to develop their ear, their sight-reading, and their comprehension. She works to create well-rounded students, sharpening their theory and expanding their musical palate. Her voice students are encouraged to accompany themselves, and she invites her piano students to sing. She aspires to cultivate empathy, love of learning, and compassion through music.


Saxophone, Clarinet, & Piano Teacher Landon Ashby

Saxophone, Clarinet, & Piano Teacher Landon Ashby

Landon Ashby

From a young age, Landon has always been entranced by music and storytelling and has been drawn to composing music, especially for film and games. A Texas native, he moved up to Seattle a few years ago to further pursue a career in music and study under two-time Emmy award winning composer Hummie Mann at the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program where he earned his Master’s in Music. Landon’s music has been heard in numerous short films, games, and TV shows, and he is currently working on several other projects including another short film and video game.

When he’s not composing, Landon also teaches composition and saxophone at all levels, as well as beginning clarinet and piano. He’s a firm believer in helping others find their passion and their musical voice and spreading the joy of music to students of all ages. Beyond teaching a solid foundational technique, he also strives to aid each student in understanding more of the theory behind the music and help foster a deeperrelationship with the instrument and performance.

Landon also encourages students to listen, learn, and perform music from all genres and one of his central tenets to teaching is showing students how to kindle their own curiosity and ultimately not only learn from him and other teachers, but for each student to learn to be their own teacher.


Phyllis Nickelson

Piano Teacher Phyllis Nickelson

Piano Teacher Phyllis Nickelson

Phyllis grew up in a musical family.  Her mother and her aunt both graduated from Seoul National University, like the Julliard school in Korea, with a piano performance degree. On her mother's side her grandparents sang and her grandfather played the violin.. 

Phyllis started piano lessons when she was 5 years old. She would practice for 2 hours, from 5 am to 7 am before school, and then for 2 more hours after school.

She was awarded numerous piano and art awards, which she also excells in..

Phyllis played the organ and piano at school during her music classes and school competitions as a solo pianist and a piano accompanist. She's taught piano since her highschool years to the present and has been a church accompanist since her elementary school years. Phyllis was a choir accompanist at Edmonds Community College for 2 years, then she worked as a teacher's assistant (TA) at University of Washington with her master's program in piano performance degree for 3 years with full scholarship and monthly stipend. She currently teaches as a local private piano teacher and on half of Henderson Academy Of Music.


Lenne Faraone

Piano & Voice Teacher Lenne Faraone

Piano & Voice Teacher Lenne Faraone

A native Washingtonian and multi-instrumentalist with formal study of piano, woodwinds, strings, voice pedagogy and composition, and with a Bachelor of Music degree earned from San Diego State University, Lenne has been teaching students of many levels, instruments and disciplines life-long. She uses a holistic approach to teaching that incorporates many methods, both music analysis and behavioral analysis, aiming for each student to acquire both skill and well-rounded musicality.