Ensemble Music

We couldn’t be happier with Ensemble Music and my daughter’s piano instructor, Tom Lee. She has studied Suzuki piano for several years, which provides a positive and nurturing environment surrounding a technique-focused structure. The result? She understands, enjoys and learns so much more than I ever did through more common methods.

I love that the focus is not just on learning pieces, but they also incorporate “playing for fun” by returning to past repertoire pieces that she previously mastered, and improvising with the occasional jam session. And, the way they mix group lessons in, in addition to the private piano instruction, creates a supportive environment that has helped my daughter build confidence to get up in front of a crowd – another important life-long skill!

We love Ensemble Music! Our two daughters have been taking lessons for several years, and we're planning to continue for many more. We appreciate the focus on making music together with others. Our kids are learning the language of music that will serve them their whole lives.

Ensemble music has been great for our three kids! We've been going there for several years for Suzuki piano lessons. Mr. Lee does a great job of modifying his approach to match our kids' personalities and learning style to get the most out of them. With that is a really nice balance of scaffolding skills, fun activities/lessons, and helping them work through new pieces that challenge them in new ways. This has been a great experience for all of our kids, and I couldn't recommend them more!

We’ve been studying piano using the Suzuki method as a family with Ensemble Music for over a decade. I am a firm believer in the benefits of music on the brain. I am so glad to have found a studio that has kept all three of my kids immersed in the language of music since they were in preschool. Ensemble Music is great. I’m a better parent for it. My kids are better learners for having gone there, and they are or are becoming wonderful and expressive musicians. I can’t say enough good things.

Unfortunately, we had a very poor experience with Ensemble Music. We had registered for the outdoor class which promised a fun experience in a beautiful park setting. Our first class was anything but, with only us and one other family in attendance. We were seated behind an ice rink right next to a busy road (Chicago Ave) and it was very difficult to hear the teacher over the traffic noise.

We were also, oddly enough, not seated in a circle which made my toddler easily distracted as she had to keep turning around to look at the other child. After the first class we had a personal matter come up which made it difficult for us to attend Sunday class and after trying an online format (which sadly was not engaging enough for my toddler who chose to do anything but pay attention to the teacher), I asked for a partial refund since we only attended one in-person class.

I was told that I would be impacting the quality of the class since they needed a minimum number of families (mind you it was just us and one other family) and refused to give any refund. I would have looked past the poor outdoor class experience, but the fact the director chose not to respond and keep all of our money was pretty disheartening. We will not be going back.

We love Ensemble Music and Music Together! My son and I are on our 8th session of Music Together at Ensemble Music, and my daughter is on her 3rd. Leah is our regular teacher, and she’s awesome. She really engages all the kids and encourages the adults to get into it. I also really appreciate her subtle methods of crowd control, like changing up the song order to match the kids’ energy. We’ve also taken a summer session with Jessica and make-up classes with Julia and Cathy, and they were all great teachers too!
My kids love the music and the older one asks for songs outside of class, or sings them himself. He’s learned respect for instruments and being good at sharing. He also loves the little slide in the outer room.