Fred Safaei, Piano

 

A distinguished pianist, full-time piano teacher, composer, and musicologist, Fred Safaei is the founder and director of Ava Music & Art Centre Ltd. He began piano lessons at around 8 years old and has been playing ever since. He taught advance level piano at the Tehran Conservatory of Music for more than 2 years. Prior to that, he was teaching piano and theory of music at the Tannin Academy of Music for 4 years. He also worked as a private instructor with a client database of more than 2000 students over a 27 years period.

Fred is an associate teacher to the Royal Conservatory of Music since 1996 and held a Diploma from The Royal Conservatory of Toronto and a Bachelor Degree in Music from Tehran University. His passion to develop the musical personality in youngster inspired him to take extra steps toward the kid's education, and had him to complete his Orff training at UBC. 

He teaches all levels from beginner to ARCT and all advance theory classes including Harmony, Counterpoint, Analysis and History of Music. He believes that by treating each student as an individual and by teaching people according to their learning style, they can perform exceptionally well and in a more enjoyable manner. His goal is to teach in a style that allows every type of student to flourish.

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Heather Deris, Orff & Kodaly

Heather has been creatively engaging young children in the act of learning music since 1993 when she received a Bachelor Degree in Music from Tehran University. She teaches Dulcimer to students of all ages for more than 16 years.   Heather's career path took flight after experiencing the joys of teaching Orff classes, an early childhood music curriculum, to young children at . This inspired her to join the Conservatory of Armenia and complete her Orff Level I to III training.

Moving to Canada in 1995, Heather immediately distinguished herself as an energetic teacher working with Ava Music and also acting as a volunteer Orff Teacher at West Coast Energy Program in North Vancouver back in 1999. She is currently a member of Music Educators' Association of Canada and a member of Orff Canada Association, BC Chapter. Most importantly, Heather is passionate about creating a new model for music education at the Ava Music & Art Centre, which best meets the academic needs and desires of the students and families who attend there.

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Marina completed her Master's in Literature and Performance at the University of Western Ontario in 2010, having passed her final recital with distinction. She moved to Vancouver in June 2010, where she took a faculty position at Ava Music. In addition to working with her students, Marina performs chamber music and gets regularly involved in new artistic projects.

Marina has taught in several music academies and conservatories in Canada and Portugal, and performs in duet with piano, and with her quartet Rocaporterica. Marina also works as an orchestra and studio musician.

She started playing baroque cello in 2008, in addition to modern cello. Her instrument is a beautiful Italian cello from 1860.

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Sonja Koruga, Piano

 

Sonja's musical journey begun in former Yugoslavia. She was born in a small city of Sombor which had a great and positive impact on her motivation as a child and early music education. Later, Sonja was accepted in one of the most prestigious music schools in Yugoslavia in Novi Sad, Isidor Bajic majoring in piano performance, which she successfully completed. Since moving to Canada, in 2002, Sonja has acquired M.Mus at the University of British Columbia in piano performance. During her long education, she was a recipient of many awards and honors, held a position as a teaching assistant at UBC and performed as a soloist and in collaboration with other musicians. Sonja is currently engaged in teaching, and her goal is to encourage sense of music appreciation in every student she works with and create fun learning environment. Her future plans involve completing doctoral degree (D.M.A. program) at the University of British Columbia.

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Mario Silva, Guitar

 

Mario Silva began studying music and playing piano at the age of eight and started playing classical guitar at the age of ten. He studied music theory and classical guitar at the Conservatory of Music in Sao Paulo , Brazil for eleven years and has also studied with well-known Brazilian musicians such as Edimilson Capeluppi and Celso Machado. He has also studied with many well respected Canadian musicians such as Bradshaw Pack, Al Ward and Bill Coon.

He first performed professionally at the age of fifteen and has been performing lots ever since. Mario is a part of five different musical groups, four of which he is the creator and leader of.  He has toured all through out Canada with various artists to perform in many different concerts and festivals as a guitar player and singer.

Mario is also a trained and experienced composer; his first all-original album will be released early next year. Mario's band Pe De Cana recently received a grant and was featured on CBC Radio-Canada Live. Mario has also been featured on other radio shows such as the CBC Radio Early Edition and CFRO 102.7 FM. Mario is competent in a variety of musical styles such as classical, Brazilian, Latin, jazz, blues and rock. He has been teaching professionally for ten years and has his Diploma in Jazz Studies from Capilano University.

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Justin Brown, Guitar

 

Justin has lived on the North Shore all of his 23 years. His first experience playing an instrument was when he was 6 years old, starting on piano. He later switched to trumpet and played in several different bands, throughout high school. He first played guitar when he was 14 years old, and immediately felt a profound love of the instrument that was entirely new to him. Piano theory and trumpet lessons both gave him helpful insight into playing guitar, and enabled him to be a self-taught guitarist. His exposure to and growing appreciation of many styles of music is a natural product of his desire to understand why a melody or harmony sounds the way it does. He has played over a hundred shows in many different original and cover bands, including blues, rock, funk, jazz, R&B, reggae, Hip-hop and country. He believes that every student has unique goals and interests in music, and their lessons should reflect their individuality

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Babak Amini, Oboe

 

Coming soon

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Intan Purnomo, Voice

 

Being told that she started singing in front of exciting audience at the age of two, Intan has always had music as a big part of her life. She started her music training with piano when she was four year old and then voice when she was eight. And later in her life, she picked up other instruments like violin and guitar. However, her love of singing never dies.  
Intan began her formal training in music at Capilano University where she earned Diploma in Music, taking voice as her major instrument and piano as her secondary instrument. Her teachers included Heather Pawsey, David McCoy and Lars Kaario. Her studies at Capilano University brought her to perform in many wonderful venues in the province and in Europe in several tours with the Capilano University Singers.
Intan was also the recipient of The Capilano Program Awards when she came to the Music Therapy Program at Capilano University. Aside from finishing her Music Therapy degree, Intan keeps herself busy singing in several choirs. Her rich, deep mezzo-soprano voice supports the alto section of Laudate Singers (www.laudatesingers.com) under Lars Kaario’s baton and can be heard every Sunday at the Holy Rosary Cathedral in downtown Vancouver where she sings under the directions Denis Bédard and Catherine Walsh in both Holy Rosary Cathedral’s Choir and Holy Rosary Women’s Choir and frequently is a featured soloist.

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Coming Soon!

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Coming Soon!

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