Meet our director,
Nissa Anderson
A violinist since age 9, Nissa became a Suzuki student the way most do - by chance.
Having enthusiastically played in school orchestra for a few years, her parents recognized she wasn’t planning on dropping the instrument anytime soon and began seeking out private lessons. They asked around and found a highly recommended teacher who happened to teach Suzuki. They’d never heard of it, but the teacher seemed great, so they signed up.
The rest is basically history. By age 17, Ms. Anderson recognized that music was such an integral part of her life there was no way she could pursue anything else as a career.
She graduated from Lake Forest College with a Bachelor’s in Music and Music Education and began teaching in public schools in Elmhurst and St. Charles. She specialized in beginning orchestra in St. Charles, helping 105 beginners per week establish a solid foundation of fundamentals on their instruments. Seeing so many beginners at once, she also spent more time teaching the basics than the average educator gets in their whole career.
Ms. Anderson taught private lessons in the evenings during her years as a school teacher. Quickly, her joy in facilitating one-on-one instruction had grown enough that she sought out Suzuki teacher training, quit her day job, and launched her own private school in 2018. Anderson Music has been her full-time job since 2021.
As a fully trained Suzuki pedagogue, Ms. Anderson believes wholeheartedly in the value of a Suzuki education. She believes that Suzuki lessons offer children a safe, nurturing space to learn how to learn. Her approach to teaching is gentle but firm, guiding students through the hurdles of correct technique while offering a soft space to land when they get it wrong. Her students work hard, but often do so with a smile.
In addition to her Suzuki training, Ms. Anderson continues to hold Illinois K-12 teaching licensure and is endorsed in Paul Rolland String Pedagogy through Level 1. She lives in the western suburbs with her rescue pup, Suki.