ERNANI DOMINGOS SANTOS
guitar, voice
Ernani Domingos Santos is a voice and guitar teacher based in West Hartford, Connecticut. He has extensive training and experience in his fields, having taught private guitar and voice lessons for two decades. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Music from the University of Santa Maria in Brazil. He also studied for a time at the University of Catareira in Sao Paulo, Brazil under the direction of Marianna Cioromila, as well as the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT under the direction of Jerome Pruet.
Ernani has served as the music director at various churches and ministries. His performance experience includes the creation and presentation of an original program, "A Musical Journey through God's Word" that set classical and contemporary composers to biblical verses. This program was recorded in 2012. He has performed vocally in such diverse locations as Portugal, France, and Spain.
MACKENZIE LIZOTTE
piano
Mackenzie Lizotte holds a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from Bob Jones University, where she studied under Dr. Susan Kindall, and a Master’s degree in Music History, Scholarship and Research Emphasis, from the Hartt School, University of Hartford. Her master’s thesis was a study of twelfth-century Notre Dame organum. She is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, the National Music Honor Society. She taught Music Appreciation at Hartt as a faculty adjunct, and has taught private piano lessons for the last five years.
Mackenzie has served in church music ministry since 2004, and her passion is equipping young pianists to make music unto the Lord. Mackenzie and her husband have three young children. She enjoys knitting, baking, long walks, and thrifting.
OLIVIA NOH
violin
Violinist Olivia Noh possesses great love for teaching. From her childhood debut as a competition winner of Seoul National University of Education to the completion of Suzuki long-term training, Noh has been a passionate musician and a dedicated teacher. As a performer, she has performed with numerous orchestras including Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra, and New Britain Symphony. She also appeared in concerts in various halls including Carnegie Hall in New York, Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Bushnell Center for the Arts in Hartford.
Noh received her Bachelor of Music from Boston University and her Master of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Hartt School. While studying at the Hartt School, she received training from a renowned instructor and a Suzuki teacher trainer Teri Einfeldt and Christie Felsing. Her principal teachers include Katie Lansdale, Bayla Keyes, and Marylou Speaker Churchill.
JOSH SPARKMAN
composition, piano
Josh Sparkman (b. 1993) is a composer and music educator residing in West Hartford, CT. Josh has a bachelor’s degree in music education from Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where he studied piano with Dr. Peter Davis. Josh also has a master’s degree in music composition from the Hartt School in West Hartford, where he took composition from Dr. Larry Alan Smith and Dr. Robert Carl. He has many years of piano teaching experience and is passionate about seeing students excel. A key aspect of his teaching approach is encouraging and maximizing a student’s strengths while challenging and helping them improve in areas that are less comfortable.
Josh is also an active composer, having served as the New Haven Chorale’s Composer-in-Residence for their 2018-2019 season. His music is performed across the country and has garnered multiple awards, including the following: Josh was awarded second place in the John Ness Beck Foundation Choral Composition Contest in 2015 for his piece, “I Lay My Sins on Jesus." Several of his choral works, including “All Is Quiet” and “Here We Come A-Caroling,” have received the Editor’s Choice award at J.W. Pepper.
In addition to his teaching and composing, Josh is the administrator of Farmington Avenue Music Academy and the assistant pastor at Farmington Avenue Baptist Church. He is married to his wife Rebekah and has a young daughter and son.
Check out his website here:
joshsparkman.com
REBEKAH SPARKMAN
piano
Rebekah is a music educator with over a decade of teaching experience. She has a bachelor’s in music education from Bob Jones University in South Carolina. While there, she studied horn with Mark Frederick. After graduation, she moved to Danville, Illinois to start a music program in a small, rural school. She started a band and choral program in addition to teaching elementary general music classes. In just a few years, the music program was thriving, and her students were placing at state competitions. Most importantly, the students were developing a love of music-making. She loves to take a student who knows little about music and work with them week after week until they are confident in their abilities and have developed their own love for music. She moved to West Hartford in 2019, after marrying her husband, Josh.