Private Lessons

Dr. Lisa Burrell, Violin Instructor

Lisa Burrell resides in Houston, Texas, where she teaches privately, is on the faculty of Lone Star College, serves as a regular public school string clinician and is active in chamber music performance. She is on the summer violin faculty of the Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, Pennsylvania, and she served as a full time violin/viola professor at Sam Houston State University from 2004-2009.  Lisa's current passion in education is a project for supporting and promoting the incorporation of chamber music study in public school string programs.  She acts as a clinician on a weekly basis in various Houston area public schools. Lisa is a graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A.), and Northern Illinois University (M.M.), and she received her doctorate in violin performance from the University of Houston in 2002.  Her former teachers include Raymond Montoni, Mark Rush, Mathias Tacke, Shmuel Ashkenasi and Lawrence Wheeler.

Lisa has performed as a part of the Burrell-Blondel Duo since 1996, and appears regularly with pianist Yung-Chiu Wang.  She has been a member of the Key West Symphony since its inception in 1998.  She was the violist of the Kolonneh String Qurartet, and has performed as a member of the Rilke Piano Quartet, the Blue Rider Players and participated in the River Road Project.  She has also served as a Performing Associate at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and a fellow at the Hampden-Sydney Chamber Music Festival, and collaborates regularly with colleagues throughout the US to promote chamber music performance.  Since 2004 she has been involved in organizing and performing benefit concerts with fellow chamber music enthusiasts to raise money for the AFAL teacher education fund of Lascahobas, Haiti, and the Ixtatan Foundation of San Mateo Ixtatan, Guatemala. Recent performance and teaching opportunities have also allowed Lisa to travel the globe.  In 2008 she traveled to Leon/Guanajuato, Mexico, to perform in the Leon Cultural Center, and to work with students of the Esperanza School.  In 2009 she was part of a promotional tour for the Alfredo San Malo Music Festival in Panama, playing and teaching in Panama City, El Valle de Anton and Nata.  In May 2009, she travelled to Cuenca, Ecuador, to teach masterclasses and lessons, and perform in the city's beautiful modern art museum. In December 2009 she traveled to Amman, Jordan, to present classes and perform a recital with Iraqi pianist Mohammad Uthman Sidiq at the Amman Conservatory of Music.

As an educator in Houston, Lisa has given over 100 clinics and masterclasses to middle school and high school students.  She has served regularly as a judge for All-Region, All-State and UIL Solo Competitions.  She has been invited to present at teacher in-services, the Texas Orchestra Directors’ Association Convention, Texas Music Educators’ Association Conference (2009, 2010), and will present two educational sessions at the American String Teachers Association Conference in Santa Clara, CA in February 2010.  Lisa’s specific interests are in promoting pedagogy that stresses alignment and injury prevention, teaching informed musical expression, and cultivating a fulfilling and lasting relationship with music among her students.  In addition to her university and summer teaching, Lisa teaches privately in the Houston area; her students have been members of Texas All-State and All-Region Orchestras, the Houston Youth Symphony, the Greater Houston Youth Orchestra, Virtuosi of Houston, and have gone on to top colleges and universities.

In addition to her love of playing and teaching the violin and viola, Lisa enjoys swimming, jogging, yoga, solving logic puzzles and cooking for friends.

Jane Kimmes, Violin Instructor

Jane Kimmes teaches from her residence in the 1960 area.  In addition to teaching private violin Ms. Kimmes is a violinist with Opera in the Heights.

Lydia Feazell, Violin Instructor

Lydia Feazell is a native Houstonian.  Inspired by her parents, Jimmy and Nancy Simon, each members of the Houston Symphony and her violin teachers, Harold Hess, Fredell Lack and Albert Meunzer, she pursued a musical career.  She earned a BME from the University of Houston and continued her public school teaching career of 28 years in the Houston area.

While teaching at Memorial Middle School in the Spring Branch Independent School District, the orchestra earned the honor of being named State Champions four times in a row, several Best in Class trophies in the Galveston Isle Festival and the invitation for the orchestra to perform in the “Festival of the States 2004” commemorating the unveiling of the World War II Memorial in Washington DC. 

After retirement from the public schools, she moved to Fayetteville, West Virginia and was given the opportunity of being a faculty member and board member of CODA Academy of Music Summer Camp.  Although she has moved back to Houston, she continues her involvement with the academy each year. 

Ms. Feazell is currently a substitute teacher in the Klein, Spring Branch, Cy-Fair, and Katy School Districts mostly substituting for orchestra directors on maternity leave.  She is often called in to schools to give clinics to orchestras during contest season.  She is an adjudicator at Solo & Ensemble Contests, Pre-UIL and UIL events and she teaches private lessons on violin and viola in her home.

Laurilyn Krantz, Violin Instructor

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Private Violin & Viola instructor of all ages in Hawaii and Texas, Klein High School, Klein Collins, Kleb Intermediate, Brill Elementary, Punahou, Iolani, Kamehameha, Saint Andrew’s Priory, Hawaii Mission Elementary, and at home studio; Led workshops within the Klein School district for Regional Orchestra Auditions; Kamehameha Schools Hawaii, Student-taught the High school Orchestra, Long term substitute for the Intermediate Orchestra, Taught sectionals, workshops, ensembles and private violin and viola; Taught an intermediate summer string program at Moanalua Intermediate; Taught an after school string program for 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Moanalua Elementary; Led String Orchestras, Sectionals and Classes for the Hawaii Youth Symphony Association; Suzuki group lessons, and University Laboratory School grades 3-12; Judged for the Hawaii American String Teachers’ Association annual Solo and Ensemble Competition and Hawaii Music Teachers’ Association; Suzuki Trained and Registered in Violin Unit 1 and Every Child Can courses.

PERFORMING EXPERIENCE

Honolulu Symphony; University of Hawaii Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, Concertmaster; Colorado Music Festival; Aspen Music Festival/scholarship student; Manoa Strings Quartet, Leader; Yellowstone Quartet, Leader; Artists in the Schools; Solo Violin; Hawaii Chamber Society Concerts; Played in Orchestras for entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Liza Manelli, Natalie Cole, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, Dave Brubeck, Richard Harris (Camelot), Bill Cosby and more; Performed Musicals presented by Hawaii Community Theater, Army Community Theater (West Side Story, 1776, Oliver, Fiddler on the Roof and more); Professional Polynesian Dancer in Tokyo; Houston Latin American Philharmonic Orchestra

Chavdar Parashkevov, Violin or Viola Instructor

Chavdar Parashkevov is currently serving as violinist for the Houston Ballet and Opera Orchestras.  His private studio includes many violinist and violists in the Klein area.

Jim McLeland, Violin or Viola Instructor

Mr. McLeland has been a professional performer and teacher of violin and viola for more than four decades. He holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Violin Performance from The Peabody Conservatory of Music of The Johns Hopkins University. While working as a teaching assistant he earned the Master of Music Degree in Violin Performance from Miami University of Ohio and completed all but the dissertation toward the Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance at the University of Houston.

University faculty positions previously held by Mr. McLeland include McNeese State University, The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Sam Houston State University. Previous orchestral positions include the Annapolis (MD) Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra, a member of and violin soloist with The United States Marine Band Chamber Orchestra ("The White House Orchestra") and Concertmaster of the Lake Charles Symphony and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Summer Music Festival positions include Brevard Music Center Orchestra (both as a high school student and later as an Artist Teacher) and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra. In solo appearances with orchestra, Mr. McLeland has performed concerti by J.S. Bach, Barber, Khatchaturian, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Saint-Saens, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi and Wieniawski.

For the last twenty-nine years Mr. McLeland has been living and teaching in the Houston, Texas suburbs of Kingwood and Atascocita. while free-lancing and working as a clinician throughout the greater Houston area. His students have won six Outstanding Solo Performance Awards at the Texas State Solo and Ensemble Competition, performing violin concerti by Kabalevsky, Vivaldi, Saint-Saens and Sibelius, Praeludium and Allegro by Fritz Kreisler and the Sonata for Viola and Piano by Rebecca Clarke. He has also produced the highest ranking students in All-State Orchestra auditions from Humble ISD on both violin (6th) and viola (14th) during this time. In 2014 the Texas Music Educators Association awarded their largest scholarship to pursue a music career to one of his students, Sarah Marts, who was a three year Texas All-State Orchestra violinist and student at Atascocita High School. Miss Marts is now the Assistant Orchestra Director at Tompkins High School in Katy, TX.

Mr. McLeland's students have won scholarships to Peabody Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Cincinnati Conservatory, Rice University, Northwestern University, Brigham Young University, the University of North Texas, the University of Houston, Baylor University and Stephen F. Austin University. Others students have received music scholarships as non-majors to colleges and universities throughout the United Sates.

Corban Taylor, Viola Instructor

Corban Taylor is a dedicated educator and performer in the Houston, Woodlands, and Spring areas. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Sam Houston State University where she studied with Eliseo Rene Salazar, Dawson White, and Nina Bledsoe. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Music at the University of St. Thomas, studying again with Dawson White. 

Studying chamber music and performing in chamber ensembles peaked Corban’s interest early in her musical career and has continued to be her passion throughout school. She was an avid performer in chamber ensembles during her semester at Columbus State University’s Schwob School of Music in Georgia where she was the graduate assistant and recipient of the school’s assistantship and music scholarship. However, Houston is Corban’s home and she decided to return to school here and continue her chamber and solo studies near family. She has performed at various gig locations including weddings, church services, corporate events, and most recently at the University of St. Thomas’ Viola Day. 

Corban has been fortunate enough to have amazing teachers and mentors during her musical career and is eager to share the knowledge she has been given to her students. She understands that every student’s path is different and works to have an individualized approach to teaching, making sure each student’s technical abilities, musicality, musicianship, etc. are being nurtured in a way that allows them to grow and succeed to their highest potential. Corban makes every effort to be a patient, driven, and understanding teacher and hopes to enhance her students’ lives.