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Pam Tallman
Group Piano & Private Piano Lessons
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Larry Tallman
LEGO™ & Robotics Larry has taught numerous science courses at the high school level for 30 years. In addition to Life Science, Chemistry, and Biology classes (including Pre-IB & AP), he has added robotics to his teaching interests and was instrumental in bringing the Space & Engineering Academy to his campus. Larry enjoys spending time with his family and dog, gardening, watching sports, working with Christian Service Brigade (similar to Boy Scout program) and teaching Sunday School at his church.
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Greg Heutmaker
LEGO™ & Robotics Greg just retired after twenty-two years as a public school teacher; twenty of those years at the middle school level. Prior to teaching he spent fifteen years in emergency medicine as an Emergency Medical Technician and a Paramedic. Greg has traveled extensively, living and working in nearly sixty countries. Some of his adventures included driving from Alaska to Panama. As a member of a four-wheel drive trans-African expedition he also traveled from England through North, West, Central, and East Africa over a five month journey. Legos has been a continuous part of his life for the last thirty years; first with younger nephews, then his first two children, he continues his passion for Legos with his younger children and by teaching here at our academy.
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Ethan Richison
LEGO™ & Robotics Ethan Richison or Mr. Ethan is 20 years old and is a current student at Stanislaus State University studying history. Ethan began working for the Modesto Academy of Music and Design in 2016 and began taking classes in 2011. Since then Ethan has been taught the techniques for pre-engineering, robotics engineering, and robotic programming. Along with what he makes for the class Ethan tries to make other designs that coincide with the activities and curriculum for the lessons.
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Joey Coray
Voice Lessons |
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Danelle Mascroft
Group Piano & Private Piano Lessons |
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Paul Herrera
Brass Instruments
Paul grew up in Stockton, CA. While at Fresno State, he was the recipient of the Rookie of the Year Award in 2006 with the Bulldog Marching Band and was a member of the Jazz Band A, Wind Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra, and Clendenin Brass Quintet. He has traveled the world performing in Beijing, England, Spain, Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Sydney Opera House. As an educator: he has taught private brass lessons since 2007. His private students have received top brass player awards at their schools; auditioned and made local honor bands, honor orchestras, and the All-State Honor Bands. Paul has been a faculty member at Clovis West High School, Washington Union High School, American Union Elementary School, and San Jose State University. In 2013, he was selected as American Union Elementary School's Teacher of the Year. In 2016, he completed his MA degree in Instrumental Conducting at San Jose State University. He is the current music director at Joseph A. Gregori High School.
Paul is an active member of the National Association for Music Education, California Band Directors Association, California Music Educators Association, California Orchestra Directors Association, and is serving as Treasurer for the Central Valley Guard and Percussion Circuit and the Stanislaus County Music Educators Association.
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Chris Steffanic
Beginning Orchestral Instruments Christopher is currently employed as a teacher for Lincoln Unified School District in Stockton, California, where he teaches classroom music and band. He received his B.M. degree from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Pacific. His previous positions included the Diocese of Stockton, Linden Unified, and Salida Union School Districts. Mr. Steffanic has been a clinician for California Music Educators, National Pastoral Musicians, and the UOP Conservatory Clarinet Festival, as well as serving as a mentor teacher for future music teachers studying at the UOP School of Education. He is a member of National Association of Music Educators, California Music Educators Association, Music Teachers Association of California, and the American Federation of Musicians Local #189. As a professional musician, he has performed with the Stockton Symphony, Townsend Opera Players, Stockton Choral, Stockton Civic Theater, Merced Pops Orchestra, Modesto Performing Arts, Gold Country Orchestra, and special musical events for the Diocese of Stockton. Chamber Music is also a favorite source of music making. Chris is a member of the Pacific Avenue Clarinets. He currently plays clarinet for the Central Valley’s premier concert band- The Valley Concert Band. Chris also enjoys playing woodwind parts in musical theater! A few of his favorites are Fiddler on the Roof and Will Rodgers Follies. |
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Cheryl Medek
Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Flute Cheryl is currently employed as a music teacher at Great Valley Academy in Modesto where she teaches classroom music, ukulele, and drums classes. She received her BA in flute performance at California State University Chico, and an MA in Music Therapy from University of the Pacific. She is currently a member of the Stanislaus Branch of the Music Teachers Association of California (MTAC), an evaluator for Certificate of Merit (CM) program, and prepares some of her flute students to perform in CM. Her previous music teaching positions include elementary band and choir director at Plumfield Christian Academy, as well as private flute instruction. She has worked with beginning and intermediate flute groups through Gottschalk’s music programs. As a professional musician, Cheryl has performed with the Stockton Symphony, Townsend Opera Players, Merced Symphony, Lodi Symphony, Stockton Opera, Stockton Chorale, and Zion Chamber Orchestra. She is a member of the American Federation of Musicians, local #189. Cheryl enjoys performing flute in her church orchestra at Big Valley Grace Community Church. |
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Jessica Johnson
Math Tutor Jessica graduated from UC Davis in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in Genetics. During college, she worked as a math tutor and completed an internship at a continuation high school as an aide for a math and science teacher. From those experiences, she decided that she loved working in education more than working in a lab. She has experience teaching high school as well as substitute teaching and most recently helping in her kids’ classes. In the 2013-2014 school year, her son’s 5th grade teacher had her working one-on-one with students in the class with their math and she fell in love with tutoring again. The teacher said of Jessica, “She has a great ability to detect where a child is struggling and the thought process they use to solve a problem. These mathematical remediation skills have made her a valued asset to my classroom. She is very energetic and has a wonderful rapport with children. Her enthusiasm is very inviting and the students have taken very well to her.”
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Amy Maris
Drama Amy Maris brings the experience and passion of several decades of stage experience and individual music instruction to her classes at MAMD. Performing with a traveling multi-media group and onstage with Modesto Performing Arts for many years, along with the experience of seeing Shakespeare performed at The Globe in London have fueled the fire for the drama classes and reader’s theater she teaches.
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Jacqueline Del Curto
Art |
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Paul McGill
Computer Graphics & Animation, Art Paul graduated from the Art Institute of Los Angeles with a Bachelor’s degree in Media Arts and Animation. He currently works as a Freelance Graphic Artist. He has worked on mobile applications such as Liquidmetal Games, GRIP (iphone) and U4RYK’s Heroes of Tomorrow (android). He has also done work for Collision Studios as a Concept Artist and UI Designer. He currently does work for Diamond Game Enterprise (online gaming) and Joli Digital Studios. |
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Tai Wong
Science, Programming, Technology, Mathematics and More! Tai has mentored, taught, tutored numerous subjects for grades K-12 and beyond to youth, college age, and seniors in his role as founder of Covenant Heritage Academy Tutoring Services along with his wife, Kathy. After years in Information Technology software, operating systems, applications, and natural and computer languages, he continues to explore technology to make it more fun and approachable for students. Tai says, "Education should be a joyful life-long journey from mystery to steps of knowing facts, walking from discovery to understanding, flying onward from practice to forms of proficiency." His goal is to come alongside students and enable them to supercahrge their learning styles, gain insights, and collaborate with one another make better tools and methods utilitzing beyond the box thinking. Currently, he continues to privately tutor and is excited to bring a new variety of classes to MAMD. |
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Blaze Pascua
Filmmaking Blaze Pascua is 20 years old and has been making homemade films since he was 12. He has competed and won awards in several competitions — such as Skills USA’s digital cinema contest, and Modesto’s own 48 Hour Film Challenge. Blaze is proficient with professional editing and design programs (Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.), with a little over 7 years’ worth of self-taught experience. He was also appointed Creative Director of Joseph A. Gregori’s News Broadcast program during his senior year. He teaches filmmaking as an art form, and believes that storytelling is done best when the filmmakers love what they’re doing.
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Jay Evans
Group Piano & Private Piano Lessons |
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Rachel Grider
Private Voice Lessons & Group Vocal Classes |
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Hamilton Farrens
LEGO™ & Robotics Hamilton is a college student who is hoping to one day become a high school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) teacher. Before teaching robotics, he studied Computer Science for 3 years including robotics and game development. Hamilton enjoys playing music, singing, swimming, calisthenics, and playing with his sister and dogs. |
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Christopher Fox
Drum, Percussion & Ukulele Lessons
Christopher Fox has been a professional musician in Northern California for over 10 years with total experience exceeding 20 years. He began his journey in elementary school with melodic percussion. Soon after he began an 8 year stent of private drum lessons from a local music school and soon began teaching others. While in High School, he developed a very successful field corps drum line with the assistance of the band director and helped several peers improve their drumming abilities. In and after college, he continued his passion for music by serving regularly on his church's worship team playing drums and guitar, performing regularly in local venues, and teaching the next generation of musicians (including his two children).
In addition to performing, Chris also has a passion and experience in live sound and recording engineering. He has performed in numerous notable venues including the famous Whisky A Go-Go in Hollywood, California, and the Pound in San Francisco. He has shared his passion for music throughout the Central Valley through private instruction and audio training for several years. |
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Ilse Crane
Literature Instructor & Tutoring I love books, all books (OK, don’t tell anyone, I like some better than others…) Always an avid reader, I made sure to stay close to books throughout my life– studying English literature in undergraduate and graduate school and working in various publishing jobs since graduation.Born in The Netherlands, I have lived in many different places around the world. I now live in Modesto, California and work as an Adjunct Instructor for the Language & Literature Department at Modesto Junior College as well as a community education instructor and a private tutor of writing and language skills, literary appreciation and analysis, and creative writing. I’m also proud to be an accredited instructor for the Institute for Excellence in Writing, a powerful writing program for students of all ages.. In another lifetime, I was a literary agent for children’s books.With a Master’s degree in English Literature and years of reading and writing experience, I am passionate about the written word and look forward to inspiring others to be equally passionate about reading and writing. |
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Allison Ruiz
Group and Private Ukulele & Guitar
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Noah Boj-Sode
LEGO™ & Robotics Noah has been a robotics and engineering enthusiast since a very young age, inspired originally by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers sent to Mars. At the age of 12 he studied LEGO Mindstorms for 12 weeks at San Joaquin County’s robotics lab and shortly thereafter started experimenting with making his own robots. In 2016, he was a student at the Academy on the VEX EDR robotics team. After that competition, he began assisting in LEGO and VEX robotics classes and has gone on to lead LEGO pre-engineering and LEGO Mindstorms. He has also assisted in teaching scratch programming and is always looking to share his enthusiasm for robotics and engineering with others. |
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Kirill Kovalenko
LEGO™ & Robotics Kirill loves helping others and working with students. He has been building Lego since he was a child and personally designing a candy machine as well as a safe out of Lego. He has learned programming in High School and has programmed and built a working thermometer. He is currently enrolled at Oakdale Highschool as a senior and will graduate in 2021. After Highschool, Kirill plans on attending a University to study Aerospace Engineering. |
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Tamar Yefet
Art
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Sydney Scott
Violin & Viola |
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Nehemiah Howard
LEGO™ & Robotics Nehemiah is a junior at Rio Valley Charter School. He began attending Modesto Academy when he was 8 years old as a member of the Mindstorms team, which he did for three years. In 2017 he joined the VEX team and competed for two years. In his free time he enjoys spending time with family, watching movies and sports, playing videogames, and working with various kinds of technology. He hopes to one day study at USC in computer science. |
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Odalys Caro
Group Piano & Private Piano Lessons Odalys Caro is a recent university graduate from the prestigious university Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA and Valencia, Spain. She has been active in the music community in Modesto and in the Bay Area, performing with elite musicians in the Classical, Jazz, and Latin scene. Playing in numerous festivals domestically like the Puerto Rican Festival in Boston, San Jose Jazz Festival, and the San Francisco Carnval, to playing internationally at the London BBC Radio, and the EXIB Music festival in Setubal, Portugal, she has met an incredible amount of musicians from all cultures and backgrounds. She has been playing piano since she was 3 years old with the Suzuki School of music, where she also participated in Certificate of Merit. She is also skilled on the alto-saxophone and the bassoon, where she has played in the Modesto Symphony Youth Orchestra, Gregori Jazz Band, and Gregori Concert Band. During her time in Boston, she spent most of her time teaching children at the Boys and Girls Clubs in Charlestown and in Allston, MA. Odalys hopes to continue to grow as a musician and teacher by inspiring the next generation with her background and knowledge in music. |