Meet Serena
Serena Hope Sun is a recipient of the 25th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards. She has almost three decades of piano playing under her belt. At the age of 17, she was offered a scholarship for concert piano. In her past, she has played competitively and given recitals across the U.S. Presently, she has converted her past hours of practicing into hours of teaching and giving back the gift of music. Her teaching style is much like her personality: enthusiastic, fun, and caring, yet backed with substance and continual development.
Serena has taught for 3 different music schools, and presently teaches at a music academy outside of her private lessons. Serena teaches students of ALL ages and skill levels. Her youngest student is 3 and her oldest is 73. She has taught everyone from complete beginners who have never touched a piano to advanced students playing Rachmoninoff.
You could say that teaching and public speaking runs in her blood, as she comes from generations of teachers starting from her grandmother, who was school teacher. And while Serena has also taught professors, her own father is a renowned professor who teaches at two different Universities and has won the Professor of the Year Award multiple years in a row. Serena’s mother teaches in 3 different language schools for young adults. Even her sister has tutored and taught children dance classes. You could say it runs in the family.
In addition to teaching, Serena has a background in psychology, entrepreneurship, personal development, literature, the arts, and film. She mentors clients in personal development, as she is a multi-certified life coach, trained in both CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). She loves helping her clients create empowered lives. She is also the founder and director of the popular mental health awareness nonprofit Breaking Taboo. She is a public speaker who has given seminars all across the Los Angeles county, and has also worked with at risk youth (elementary, middle school, and high school) in programs dedicated to life skills development, creative therapy, and anti prejudice awareness. She is a life long humanitarian, and has volunteered everywhere from pet shelters, homeless shelters, and nursing homes where she has played piano and sang for the elderly. Basically, she enjoys giving back.
As for the entertainment industry, Serena has done it all. She has been both in front of and behind the camera, and worked on various film sets. She is a graduate of intensive acting programs, including Stanford Meisner and Alba, and has also studied method acting, Alexander techniques, improvisation, and more. Serena has worked in various entertainment jobs as an actress, a host, and even as a news anchor. Serena enjoys the excitement of the industry, and she enjoys the balance of other worthy endeavors such as her mental health nonprofit, teaching and giving back.
Naturally, with such a background, it is perhaps instinctive for her to utilize her psychology, personal development, life coaching, creativity, and leadership skills to empower her students and pull out the best in them effortlessly, while making sure that they are truly enjoying every single lesson. Time often passes too fast in each lesson because her students are just so enthusiastic about what they are doing— some of her young students don’t want her to leave their lessons! She makes an effort to connect with each and every student so as to better understand them and their own individual, unique needs. She combines proper technique with music repertoire catered to each student’s interests, so that every lesson is fun and exciting.
Throughout the years, Serena has developed her own technique- a unique blend of the best techniques from all of her past instructors- Russian, Chinese, and American. She makes sure to start with and/or correct toward the proper technique that helps her students to not only advance the quickest, but to also build a solid foundation for the rest of their lives. Her main goal is ensuring that every single student sees progress after every single lesson, while still teaching at each individual student’s own pace. She makes sure to take into consideration both the values of her students and of their parents, and to incorporate them into every lesson. After each lesson, the student is left with just the right amount of compassion, encouragement, success and challenge- and most of all, eagerness to advance. You must have a mixture of all to move forward on the stepping stones. Forward and onward!
Perhaps even above the value gained in skill training, lessons with Serena leave students with invaluable life lessons such as but not limited to: empowerment, confidence, self awareness, focus, discipline, trial-and-error, persistence, acknowledgement, reward, and recognizing their own beautiful selves. They gain tools for - not just music or speaking- but in all areas of life, tools that they carry with them for the rest of their lives.
(Serena is also comfortable teaching people who have mental and/or physical health challenges. Please mention in the contact form if you or your loved one falls under this category.)
