Carmen is not only one of our best teachers, but one of our best former students. Carmen has studied with Darrell Leffler's Academy of Music under the tutelage of Darrell Leffler. Carmen's expertise in performance includes Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. She is a former grand champion of the California State Talent Competition and have one many other honorable awards. Carmen loves working with young children, which is her expertise.

Greg has a BA Degree in music education with a concentration in voice. He has been a music teacher for all most 30 years. His specialty is Vocal. He has directed several church and school choirs. He also formed the Holly Oak school choir in 2005. Greg has been Vocal Director for Darrell Leffler's Academy of Music for 14 years. He has owned Greg Farbizio's Vocal School for over 25 years. He also formed another vocal business called Children and Youth Unite To Sing. His group performed at a United Nation birthday celebration. He was honored as Business Man of The Year in 2003 for Children and Youth Unite To Sing. Many of his students have won major National Competitions through out the years. He has provided National Anthem singers for the San Jose Giants and San Francisco Giants baseball teams, the San Francisco 49ers football team as well as Stanford football and basketball teams. Greg's greatest attribute is his dedication to all of his students.

Helen Orzel is from a family of musicians and received her undergraduate from CSU Northridge in piano performance and pedagogy and continued on to pursue a two year exchange program studying piano performance in Trossingen Germany. She has performed in primarily in the Los Angeles area, the Bay area, and Germany. Her compositions have been played in the Los Angeles area. Besides the piano, Helen also plays the saxophone and viola.

Helen has been a guest lecturer and pianist at Hartnell College and Monterey Peninsula College. Currently, she is finishing up her masters degree in music education at San Jose State. She is also Orff certified. Because she has been pursuing a masters, she has not been performing. In May of 2009, Helen intends to take up piano performance once again and plans to perform recitals featuring her own compositions as well as works by Beethoven, Bach, and Scriabin.

Helen has enjoyed being with the Darrell Leffler Academy since 2007. Her students have played in recitals and have done quite well. Helen enjoys teaching standard repertoire, but enthusiastically teaches lesser played music from Eastern Europe. Piano technique is pertinent in her teaching not only because it produces good music, but because good technique is necessary for preventing injuries that some pianists often suffer.

Leilani has been singing for 14 years. She was a former student of Darrell Leffler's Academy of Music under the training of vocal director, Greg Farbizio. She has worked on her vocal studies at Ohlone College.

Her theater experience includes “Miss Saigon” held in the Smith Center at Ohone College. She has been teaching at Darrell Leffler’s Academy of Music for since 2005, both teaching private lessons and group classes.

Leilani's specialty is vocal coaching, both pop and classical music. Her opera performances include, “La Boheme” and “Carmen” and was the featured vocalist in a concert at the Montgomery Theater.

When she was a young, she was featured as a child prodigy on the Jenny Jones Show. Leilani's best attribute is her dedication and professionlism to all of her students. Leilani has become a major influence in the many young minds she has touched.

A popular South Bay Area guitarist and teacher, Daniel Yarritu has been teaching in San Jose since 1995. He began his private studio at the request of his classmates at Independence high school at the age of 17 and has since taught privately and with local music schools.

Mr. Yarritu has also taught for the San Jose Youth Symphony in their elementary after school program (Music Matters-2005-2006) and currently teaches the guitar classes at Independence High School (2006- present). Mr. Yarritu received his guitar education from several local professional players- James Robinson, Ken Schroeder, Pepe Haro and Bahram Behroozi (San Jose State University), and has also taken lessons with Antonio Calogero, Peppino D’Agostino and masterclasses with Lily Afshar, Denis Azabagic locally and abroad in France with Silvina Lopez and Johan Fostier. His training ranges from classical guitar in the traditional Spanish style to jazz, blues, rock and steel string fingerstyle music. Mr. Yarritu graduated with Honors in English Literature from San Jose State University.

Mr. Yarritu has performed at venues all over the Bay Area, at small San Francisco and San Jose clubs with singer songwriters, at San Jose’s Center for Performing arts with the SJSU Choraliers, San Jose and Campbell music festivals, and on the main stage with the Unknown Jeromes at Monterey’s First Night Festival. Mr. Yarritu currently performs regularly with the acoustic James Robinson group (Favored Nations). His work ranges from coaching all kinds of musicians to studio and live performances.

Minh has been with Darrell Leffler's Academy of Music since the mid 1990's. Minh earned a BA in Music Education at San Jose State University. He also is a choir and music teacher at Oak Grove High School. Minh's specialty is working with older children 12-17 years of age. He understands the developing minds of this age group and teaches in a style that accommodates these maturing minds.

Stephanie started her musical education at the very early age of 10 with Darrell Leffler. She first began her music education in Maestro Darrell's Music Workshop (an after school music program) at Noble Elementary School. Since those early days as a child, she has had the patience and talent to become a teacher. She continued studying under Darrell Leffler all the way to her college years and has helped as an assistant instructor. She has now become one of our most popular teachers who loves working with children. We are very proud of her accomplishments.