Our Teachers

Fred Alvarado

Frederick Alvarado lives along side a mini-junk yard where his neighbor works on old cars and small boats. Four blocks away from the Fruitvale BART, the tiny neighborhood that he lives in exists between train tracks, the 880 freeway and various industrial businesses. A couple of weeks ago Frederick found a part of the neighborhood he had never been too. He remembers thinking “It is great to find something new in the familiar.” After 8 years of living in East Oakland, he is considering moving to West Oakland. Frederick is an interdisciplinary artist working with communities through out the San Francisco Bay Area.

Holly Burnett

Holly Burnett is a native of St. Louis, MO and has lived in the Bay Area for three years. She graduated from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee in 2005 with a Bachelors degree in Music Education. Holly teaches at El Dorado Elementary in San Francisco for Music in Schools Today, she is also a Miracle Chorus conductor for the Oakland Youth Chorus as a part of their OYC for Music Education program for K-5th grade students. Holly is an active member of the East Bay alumnae chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota, a professional music fraternity that promotes and supports music education and organizations in the community. In her free time, she enjoys playing the flute, guitar, and piano.

Michelle Chang

Chiung-Wen (Michelle) Chang has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from University of Florida, a master’s degree in music education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor’s degree in music education from National Taipei University of Education in Taipei, Taiwan. She is a classically trained pianist, a French horn player, and a vocalist. Her specialty includes piano performance, critical pedagogy, and cross-cultural studies. Michelle taught the elementary school music classes and directed instrumental band and choir for children in both Taiwan and the United States for several years. She also taught the undergraduate World Music class at the University of Florida. Throughout her career, Michelle has dedicated her innovation, creativity and enthusiasm to music teaching and pedagogical research. She has incorporated a combination of the Kodály and Orff approaches into her music classroom teaching.

Jean Di Lisio

Jean Di Lisio offers residencies that weave academic improvement and appreciation of diverse cultures through mastery of song, dance, and storytelling traditions, while fostering the American Orff Schulwerk approach. A versatile and innovative music and dance teacher, Jean Di Lisio studied, taught, and performed choral music and a variety of dance genres including ballet, tap, modern, and international folk. She earned a BA in Behavioral Science with a minor in Dance from Loretto Heights College in Denver, Colorado, and pursued graduate study at the University of New Mexico, where she studied modern dance and opera. She has been performing and teaching in the choral and dance industry for over 15 years. With Mansi Kern’s Festival Folk Ensemble and Dancers of Santa Fe, New Mexico and The Oklahoma City International Folk Dancers, she designed music and dance learning events for the Norman and Chandler Arts and Humanities Council in Oklahoma, Raton Public Schools in Raton, New Mexico and for Pueblo City School District 60 and Cheyenne Mountain School District 12 in Colorado.

Galen Grant

Bay Area drummer Galen Grant became passionately involved in music at age 10, and has since committed himself fully to the art! Galen was born an East Coaster, in Pittsburgh P.A. After competing and performing both locally and in Europe during High School, Galen decided to answer the calling of the West Coast that rang true since his time in Seattle as a kid. While in pursuit of a New College of San Francisco degree in Art and Social Change, Galen had the opportunity to take full advantage of Berkeley California's 'Jazzschool'. During this time Galen cultivated his eclectic rhythmic sensibilities at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music studying under tabla guru Swapan Chaudury. Galen's direction has always been molded by many musicians.  He is constantly in search of the 'New Music', drawing from the rhythmic concepts of Jazz, Jungle, Latin, Indo-Jazz fusion grooves, and the entire Funk diaspora. Grant has worked professionally with many Bay Area musicians. Galen is a music educator in the East Bay/San Francisco area, teaching both privately, and in the Piedmont School District. He is also currently coaching a Rock/Pop ensemble class called GrooveLab for MUST. Galen is continually in search of diverse musical partnerships to expand and fulfill his generations craving for a rich cultural identity!

Meagan Hughes

Meagan Hughes is a board-certified Music Therapist and graduate of the University of Minnesota in Music Therapy. She completed an intensive internship at Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics in San Francisco and is an experienced facilitator of music-based skill groups utilizing percussion, voice, guitar, musical improvisation and composition with youth and adults. Meagan has also spent the last two years studying West African drumming with a Senegalese master drummer in the Bay area.

Maria Janus

Maria Janus received her Bachelor of Music from Louisiana State University and her Master of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Despite her classical training, Maria is also greatly influenced by the music she heard growing up in Mississippi and Louisiana – jazz, blues, and zydeco. With an extensive performance background, Maria incorporates acting, improvisation, dancing, and singing in the classroom. Maria joined M.U.S.T. in February, teaching music theater at Hillside Elementary in San Leandro. She also teaches private voice lessons in San Francisco. In her free time, Maria enjoys taking dance classes, including Bhangra, Hip Hop, and Afro-Brazilian. While studying at SFCM, Maria studied voice with Jane Randolph and coached with Timothy Bach.

Yari Mander

Yari Mander has been a professional music educator for over 15 years. He is also a professional drummer who has performed with Keith Terry, Reverend Michael Beckwith, Rickie Byars-Beckwith, Agape Choir, Chochmat HaLev band, Joan Baez, Maracatu Luta, One World Music, and Gamelan X. His clear and supportive teaching style has been honed by years of teaching children and adults, influenced by Orff-Schulwerk-a somatic approach to music education-and his studies of African musical pedagogy in Ghana, West Africa. He is also very interested in intersection of nature, culture and spirituality and is fully engaged in the integration of these paths. Yari also likes to hike, climb mountains and pick raspberries.

Kat Parra

Since leaving her corporate job at Cisco Systems, Inc four years ago, Kat Parra, a San Francisco Bay Area-based Latin/World Jazz vocalist, has released three CDs to critical acclaim. Along with being voted Best Latin Jazz Vocalist of 2010 and 2008 by the Latin Jazz Corner, and her CD “Azucar de Amor” having been nominated for Best Latin Jazz Album of 2008 by the Jazz Journalist Association, Parra has also received many excellent reviews around the world, including a feature article in Latina Style Magazine and a glowing review in Billboard Magazine. Parra has toured both nationally and internationally. She has performed at top-tier venues of the Bay Area as well as in Amsterdam, Brazil, Mexico, Southern California, Illinois and Washington State.

Kat Parra has leapt beyond the boundaries of the typical Latin Jazz singer. With her thirst for the exploration of world rhythms and tonalities, she has developed a style of music that encompasses sounds that both transcend and bend the stereotypical definition of Latin Jazz. Utilizing the rich and varied tonalities of Latin America, the Middle East and Spain, Kat has created an engaging and unique repertoire with fresh and exciting new arrangements. Parra sings fluently in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Ladino (Judeo-Espanyol). With this multi-lingual and multi-musical experience, Kat Parra is able to transport her audiences to an exciting and vibrant journey of World and Latin music.

Ron San Miguel

Ron San Miguel, Singer/Songwriter and Performing Artist, has been performing music throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond for more than 20 years. Fully bilingual in Spanish and English, his performance venues have included Día De Los Muertos, Oakland; Cinco de Mayo Festivities in Oakland and San Francisco; U.C. Berkeley; Stanford University; several Bay Area Radio and Television stations, and Oakland Raiders performances. He plays a number of different styles of music, so when pressured to identify his genre of music, he says “World Folk” – which helps him promote his love for cultural diversity. Although his main instrument is Voice, Ron plays Guitar, Cajón, Bongos, Maracas, and Güiro. He teaches singing, stage presence, and songwriting.

Ron has worked with at-risk youth, in and out of Juvenile Hall, as well as with youth choirs and with senior citizens in assisted living programs throughout the East Bay. Over the years he has worked with children, youth, and adults in a variety of settings, including public and private schools, churches, non-profit community organizations, Oakland Parks & Recreation Department, and, most recently, through MUST at Hillside Elementary School's HAPA Program, where he teaches Introduction to Drumming to second, third, and fourth graders.

In addition to music, Ron is a T'ai Chi Ch'uan Instructor, with thirty-two years of practice and decades of teaching under his belt. He currently teaches at East Bay Aikido, Jack London Square, Oakland Hills Tennis Club, and Kaiser Hospital in Oakland.

Tracy Welsh

Tracy Welsh is a multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter who has traveled the world as a musician, educator and environmentalist. He has multiple degrees from New York University and has received training from numerous art centers, Master Teachers and Music Therapy programs. He has been teaching for over fifteen years and has served in the full range of arts and education organizations, community centers and schools. For the past seven years Tracy has been a featured teaching artist with Music In Schools Today, where he has been the principal teaching artist on the Understanding Cultures project. Understanding Cultures in an artist in residency program that integrates SFUSD curriculum standards in social studies and the arts, with an experiential world musical opportunity.

Tracy is truly what one would call a musical cross-training teacher. He is as comfortable with kindergarten classes at "star" public schools, as with middle school classes at Lycee Francais-La Perouse. He currently teaches at both. By incorporating the complementary styles and techniques of theater, dance, circus arts and storytelling, Tracy has mastered an approach to teaching that is both dynamic and magnetic.

Sarah Willner

Sarah Willner has extensive experience working with children and adults in musical education. She holds both Multiple Subject and Music Credentials, and is a certified Orff Schulwerk teacher, an approach which integrates music, language, movement, and drama. She has helped develop a variety of music integration programs, working with Music in Schools Today, Oakland Unified, Alameda County, the Oakland Youth Chorus, and Harvard's Project Zero. Sarah helped found the Arts Integration program at ASCEND School in Oakland, and has recently finished creation of an ELD/Music Integration curriculum with Yari Mander. Sarah has played viola and violin professionally for over twenty years, and is a long-time member of the internationally acclaimed Balinese music and dance troupe, Gamelan Sekar Jaya. She is also a performer and producer with San Francisco's nationally known ShadowLight Productions theater ensemble. In 2006, she became one of the first teaching artists to receive the west coast Fund for Artists grant for continuing study and exploration in music. Her chapter 'Musical People/Musical Schools' is included in the arts learning book, 'Artful Teaching', which will be published by Teachers College Press this coming year.

Michael Wynar

Michael Wynar has been playing the guitar for twenty two years and has been teaching for ten years in a variety of settings from music studios, day treatment centers, affordable housing communities, and public schools. Michael attended Northern Illinois University, where he worked on a master’s degree in jazz studies under the tutelage of Fareed Haque. During this time Michael had the great opportunity to play and learn from some of Chicago’s finest musicians. After leaving the windy city to come back to his native California, Michael immersed himself in the bay area music scene performing with live hip-hop groups, neo-soul singers, and funk and jazz artists. Michael is currently instructing a guitar ensemble at Hillside Elementary in San Leandro for Music in Schools Today as well as teaching general music to 4th and 5th graders at Hillside Elementary School. He currently performs with the +One Trio which will be getting ready to release an upcoming recording.