My goal is not just to teach students how to play, but to help them grow in music, as well as in character. As a teacher, I take a personal interest in every student as an individual and I aim to touch their hearts through music. Helping students find joy in piano is my primary objective. Often practicing can be repetitive and tedious, especially technical exercises. However, those exercises and practices are necessary for progress. By teaching them music theories and histories, they have a better understanding and can adopt the music and express themselves. When guided by proper technique, unnecessary repetitions are minimized to allow them to find joy in music. Most of all, by revealing the wonderful world of music to them and showing them how exciting it is to play and enjoy the music, students seem to experience the music from their heart.
About
Education
B.M. Piano Performance, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Affiliations
Nationally Certified Teacher of Music (NCTM), HMTA, Honolulu Piano Teachers Association (HPTA)
Biography
Christine Lee has taught for 35 years and is the owner of Young’s Piano Studio in Honolulu. She received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa under Dr. Peter Coraggio, Beebe Freitas, and Paul Lyddon. Since 2006, Christine has been a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music (NCTM) in piano through the Music Teachers National Association and has been a member of Hawaiʻi Music Teachers Association for 25 years. For three years, Christine has also taught at the School of Performing Arts; a local, non-profit organization run by Dr. Coraggio that was dedicated to giving after-school private piano lessons.
Christine’s students have placed many times in the HMTA Junior Artist competitions and perform at senior citizen communities as a public service. In addition, her students have also performed in Pianomania and the Aloha Festival.
Apart from teaching, Christine was also a piano accompanist at the Korean Central Union Church for seven years and at the Korean Catholic Church for five years. She has written the music columns “Introduction to Classical Music” for the Korean Central Daily Newspaper, “A Tour of Popular Classical Music” for The Korea Times, and has also written for Weekly Hawaiʻi Magazine. Christine also broadcasted radio shows on music history and pedagogy for Radio Seoul for three months by invitation of Radio Korea Hawaiʻi (AM 1460). She also served as an adjudicator for the Korean Festival Singing Contest and the Korean Language Singing Contest for many years.
Website
Contact
This directory is service provided to teaching members of the Hawaii Music Teachers Association and to the Hawaii community. While HMTA will do its best to connect Hawaii piano students with local piano teachers, the responsibility for fulfillment and content of piano lessons, as well as safety, rests solely with the individual teachers. If you are a piano teacher in Hawaii and would like to be listed in this directory, please consider becoming a member.