Pacific Piano School

Some of the most experienced and qualified teachers in the Bay Area. They are dedicated, professional, and compassionate. Absolutely no hesitation in recommending PPS to anyone seeking expert music tuition.

We had a very bad experience with this place.
My son was being taught for almost 4-5 years by Ms Anna Samipiani at PPS. Initially, in person, but during covid, it was online, and she never came back. My son didn't want to change teachers.

My son was preparing for CM exams and did till level 5.
The issue was Ms. Anna was never happy with my sons performance. Initially, this seemed right, but eventually, this turned into her achievement instead of my son's. She pulled his application to the CM level because she felt he wouldn't get the highest grade with honors. She called him a failure because he scored 82% in theory. We literally begged her not to pull his application, but she did that without our permission. They ruined his chances since he now cannot write that in his college applications.

We received no support from the institute except for a refund on theory, which was paid three months in advance. They ruined his year and did not even refund the money. But more than money, they ruined his chance to clear the exam to save their image by showing that all their students get the highest grade and honors.

Very self-centered of them, esp Ms. Anna who never inspired or believed in my son in the last few years. She was more worried of her own image. Called us ungrateful via email and that was quite something.

We have left them after a few years and have found a wonderful instructor nearby. Some instructors like Dr. Dante are verbally and mentally abusive. I won't go into too much detail, but one of the instructors actually advised our son to take drugs to calm his nerves before a performance.

My advice is to try each instructor out and find the right fit. Just because one costs more doesn't mean they are better. You are the customer and have the vote of where to spend your money.

This is a wonderful school with talented musicians as teachers. Chinh Le in particular is an extraordinary teacher. David has grown so much with his instruction. He has performed in the honors recitals in large part due to Chinh's instruction and encouragement. The school prepared David to perform in the San Jose Youth Orchestra and in numerous recitals and performances. We highlight recommend this school for your child.

Perhaps you didn't know
A piano school
Can make you write poems...
I
Feel
It is easy to learn when you have such amazing
Caring teachers,
Passionate about modeling you
Into a real artist,
Always by your side,
Never giving up
On you;
Special people that shape your life,
Creating memories,
Holding your hand and teaching you
One day
One song at a time to
Live your life to the full potential and rise above the clouds
Into the sunshine.
Surprise yourself every day when you
Touch the piano and make divine music that will
Heal your soul and melt the stars.
Enjoy every moment when you perform
Beyond your highest expectations.
Expect the best and give your best, knowing that
Skills that you learn here will last a lifetime.
This is not the end, it is just the beginning!
....................................................................................

I am truly impressed with Pacific Piano School and thrilled that my daughter is part of it! I have a profound admiration for everything the teachers at this school do for our children. From the first class, months ago, until today, they exceeded my highest expectations.

We feel truly blessed to have Mr. Julian Toha as our daughter's teacher! Mr. Julian is the most wonderful teacher: kind, caring, patient, extremely knowledgeable, truly inspiring and passionate about modeling young children into real artists. He very easily connects to his students, so they get the most out of their lessons. All the effort that he puts in this studio speaks for itself: regular events organized for his students and their families (like the amazing Halloween Party) with the purpose of building a strong community, regular emails and webpage updates (see www.juliantoha.com/studio), a strong system in place to motivate the students and to recognize merits. In the few months since Mr. Julian teaches at Pacific Piano School, we witness the studio growing before our eyes.

My daughter also grew exponentially in such a short time, from the beginner level to being chosen Student of the Month (in a studio with 40+ talented kids) and to even being selected to participate in a competition. When I saw her in the competition, I was speechless: I could see her confidence, and she was playing piano with pure passion, to perfection. My daughter absolutely loves her piano classes and her teacher!

I HIGHLY recommend Pacific Piano School to everyone, and I hope that this OUTSTANDING school will continue to grow in the future!

I truly believe this is the best place for your child to learn to play piano.

*** PS: If you want to experience for yourself the top notch quality of this school, take a look at the latest video from Pacific Piano School, featuring the recent festival and competition in November, the Russian Festival 2014:

http://youtu.be/3SLRI6jubvY

This is a long overdue review for the school. My son has been studying piano at the school for 3.5 years and my daughter has been studying for about a year now. I have personally referred a lot of my friend to the school but not yet spent time to write the review. Both of my kids are studying under Mr Julian and I echoed all the compliments from other parents. He has personalized curriculum for all the kids. Since both of my kids have different interest and personality, he gave them different pieces to work on, not just playing through a set book. He also encourage parents to upload practice video between lessons and spent his personal time to give comments, checking practice progress. Beyond that, he hosts recitals in addition to schools recitals. He hosted parent duet recital encouraging the whole family to enjoy playing music, and he also hosted pop recitals, kids can play their favorite movie game songs. He even taught and helped kids to organize the recital. The kids received more than piano education, music education, it's more well around education than I can image.
The school is well organized by Mr. Dmitriy. He posted year schedule before the school year starts, so family can plan schedule accordingly. There are 2 recitals for each student a least, spring and winter and semester check of the progress. He himself spent 2 whole days, over 12 hours at these 2 school recitals to listen each student performance and gave ratings. The best students are chosen to play in the honor recital, this is a good way to encourage student to practice and improve performance. In addition to school recitals, honor recitals there is music festival competition in the school. Also each teacher helped their kids prepare for CM test and other music competitions. Beyond all the recital and competition, the school also organize summer camp in lake tahoe. My son loved the summer camp, during the 8 day camp, they spent 4-5 hours learning and playing piano every day then do all kinds fun activities like fishing and swimming etc the rest of the time. Mr Dmitriy, Dr Yang and Dr Dante taught my son in the camp last year, and they are all top notch pianists like Mr Julian. They all had a lot of experience teaching kids piano. Piano is not easy to learn, but they have made the experience so fun. My kids never wanted to miss any piano lessons. I recommend the school to all parents who want the kids to learn music, all the teachers are great. They also have violin and vocal classes.

My experience here was very disappointing. While my assigned teacher had impressive academic credentials he was a poor teacher. Degrees and education mean nothing without the ability to teach, experience, and knowledge of piano pedagogy. Lessons were unstructured. My teacher seemed to have little knowledge of appropriate level pieces to assign. He would spend too much time playing himself rather than instructing. Each time I needed music or books, the school was out.

The director is rude and unprofessional. He filled the teachers schedule with new students...then "promoted" him and raised tuition less than three months into starting lessons.

My daughter has grown dramatically both in technicality and musicality after being with Dr. Ilya Blinov for just a little under a year. His teaching style is amazing and very effective. He has a very calm personality and has tons of patience with his students and that works extremely well with my daughter. He always say words of encouragement to the kids or give positive feedback. Love his analogies when he tries to help the kids understand how to play the piece better. It's so hard to find a teacher who is great in performance and yet great with teaching. Dr. Ilya Blinov has both of those qualities in him and his students are quite fortunate to have him as their teacher. (Did I mention that Dr. Ilya Blinov is a great concert pianist also?). His recent concerts, The Seasons by Tchaikovsky and Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky were enlightening.

Our other child's teacher is Mr. Julian Toha. There are many great reviews for Mr. Toha here already and I totally agree with them all. I would like to add that Mr. Julian is not only great with teaching kids, he is quite an amazing artist and very creative. If your child is a creative one, Mr. Julian could help bring out that creative side of your child. Mr. Julian also helps the kids composing their own songs if they show an interest in doing so. With less than a year, Mr. Julian was able to bring our son's performance skills to the next level. He can play a piece of music expressively and really enjoyed performing them. Our son also loves his theory class. You will hear tons of laughter coming out from the theory class. Julian makes the class very interesting and our boy loves going to class every week, especially the theory classes. I don't know of any kids who doesn't love Mr. Julian. If you ask a kid why they like to go to piano class, the kind of a respond you would get from the child is "because of you, Mr. Julian". :)

About the school...this is a great piano school and in part due to the dedication of the Director and Associate Director, Mr. Dmitriy and Dr. Lyubov Kosovskiy. They care to have highly qualified teachers for the school so that every child can get a good piano, violin, and voice education while attending PPS. The school's program design allows ample opportunity for student performance via recitals, honors recitals and music competition. They would take the time out (2 full days) to listen to every single child's performance during the recitals period which occur 2x/year. They listened and provided feedback for improvement. It is this level of dedication from the Directors plus the many great teachers here which make this school a wonderful place for your child's music education.

I have only good things to say about this school. First I have two daughters and two different instructors our 5 yr old was having difficulty learning by paying attention and her instructor and Director were understanding and flexible about it that I had to stop her classes and never felt any pressure and our 15 yr old has been taking lessons since last year with Dr. Dante who is superb at what he does; in less than a year she had her first recital and it has been a sweet delight listening to her playing, accomplishing so much in such little time is very gratifying.


On a small note:
I will say that if any one has a negative thing to say, before making a negative review, approach any concerns to the Director or instructors , communication goes a long way and everyone at the Piano academy is very understanding and helpful.

I enrolled my 4 years old for the group lessons without much expectation. I just wanted her to get her started on music. However, after 10 months, I am proud to say that she can play better than me(I took 1 year of piano lessons back in high school). She can read all the piano notes and know all the beats. My husband and I are still super impressed everyday seeing her play. Mr. Julian is incredible! He's passionate, patient, and extremely hard working. He has high expectation, which can be a little stressful sometime but the end result is amazing and worth the effort. Also the recitals are very helpful. It helps them build presentation skills in front of large crowd