Welcome to the 2025-26 School Year!
According to research, the average privately tutored student outperforms 98% of students taught only under standard classroom group instructions. Denton ISD offers a private lesson program before and after school, as well as during your student’s regular orchestra class. Teachers are available on each instrument. All teachers listed have been selected by interview, approved by the district, and screened through a background check. Lessons offered during school hours or in a district school building go for the reasonable price of $20 per lesson. The expectation is for students to take one lesson per week.
The benefit of private instruction for your orchestra student can not be stressed enough. There is no substitute for one-on-one private instruction from an accomplished and pedagogically sound teacher. To enroll your student in private lessons: please contact Ms. Richardson, and fill out the form below.
Barbara Brown
Barbara Woodring Brown was raised in the suburbs of Boston and studied piano at Nyack College in New York, Boston University School for the Arts and the University of Arkansas Graduate school where she holds a Master of Music in Piano Performance. She also has a Master of Education from Lesley Graduate School in Cambridge Massachusetts.
In addition to keyboard studies Mrs. Brown has played violin and more recently viola throughout her career as a middle school and high school orchestra director in Longview, Kilgore, Tyler and Dallas school districts, retiring in 2018 after six years at Hillcrest High School in Dallas.
Mrs. Brown has performed on violin and viola locally with the Sherman Symphony, the New Life Symphony and the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Irving as well as formerly with the Longview, Marshall and North Arkansas Symphonies. She has performed with the Global Missions Project in Brazil, Israel, Guatemala and twice in Italy.
More recently she has studied violin (2018-2019) with Sho-Mei Pelletier (Associate Principal 2nd Violin, DSO) and viola (2020-2022) with Barbara Sudweeks (Associate Principal Viola DSO and SMU Faculty). The focus of study was primarily on technique through state level etudes, 3 octave scales, Bach unaccompanied works and advanced repertoire.
Mrs. Brown has served as a church pianist and organist for many years and enjoys accompanying soloists and choirs in both church and school settings. She has worked for Trekorda for the last five years as a coach and accompanist and independently as an accompanist all over the metroplex.
She currently freelances as a teacher, accompanist and judge for local music teachers’ associations and the National Guild of Piano Teachers.
Mrs. Brown has lived in Massachusetts, Kenya (where she served with Africa Inland Mission), Southern California, Arkansas, Illinois and Texas. She has three grown children, eight grandchildren and two dogs. She enjoys practicing, reading, hiking and traveling with her husband, Stephen Brown, (semi-retired artist/illustrator) who now drives for Denton ISD
Corinia Maxson is a native of Denton, and played in the Denton High School Orchestras. She performed as an All-Region and All-State musician in her time as a student in Denton ISD. She has been working as a private lessons teacher in the district for many years, and brings those years of expertise to Strickland MS.
Andrew Dunlap
Andrew Dunlap began playing the double bass at the age of 12. By the time he started High School, he had begun studying double bass with Gudrun Raschen, who is now a bass professor at the University of North Texas. He placed in Texas All region and Texas All State ensembles, attended the Bass and Cello Conservatory in Dallas, and studied regularly at the North Texas Summer Double Bass Camps. He performed with the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra regularly in High School, and toured China with them in 2015. Andrew has also worked with Joel Quarrington and Robert Cohen, respectively, at Orford in 2018. Since then, he has performed with the Monroe Symphony, Odysseus Chamber Orchestra, and most recently was part of a choral orchestral fundraiser concert in support of The Grace Center Texas. Andrew is currently working towards completing his bachelor's at UNT, and is an electric bassist for Captain Moon and The Silver Spoons.