Suzuki Music School Instructors
All of our teachers are Suzuki trained and are members of the Suzuki Association of the Americas.

Jan, Nina, Cynthia, Jay and Patrick

Janet Janz (Cello)
Jan is the owner/director of the Suzuki Music School and has taught cello since 1983. She holds a B.M. in Music Education from DePaul University. Jan is also a licensed Kindermusik teacher. She is a member of the Lake Shore Symphony Orchestra and the Fern Court Trio. Jan also conducts two youth string orchestras at the Merit School of Music.

Nina Saito (Violin)
Nina Saito received her B.M. from Northwestern University and her M.M. from the University of Houston. She has only recently begun to teach and is really enjoying the Suzuki Music School family! Nina previously performed throughout the country with various orchestras including the New York City Opera National Company, Western Opera Theater (San Francisco) and Sarasota Opera. She enjoyed spending ten wonderful summers performing with the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria as well as participating with the Spoleto Festival both in Spoleto, Italy and Charleston, SC. Nina currently teaches and freelances in the Chicago area.

Jay Kolin (Piano)
Jay has taught Suzuki piano for 7 years. He has a MS in education from Wheelock College in Boston, specializing in primary education. He was a former Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, a former teacher/deputy head teacher at Kisumu International School in Kenya, and field officer/teacher for Harvard University's WorldTeach Project, also in Kenya. He has studied piano with Darryl Rosenberg, Kathleen Supove, Leena Crothers, Greg Slowik, and has done master classes with Melvin Chen (Yale University), Diane Andersen (Conservatoire Royale de Musique, Belgium), and Rebecca Rafaelli (New Haven). He loves animals and volunteers at Chicago's Furry Friends Foundation.

Patrick O’Malley (Recorder)
Patrick is a professional recorder player and the only Suzuki recorder teacher in Chicago. Patrick earned an M.M. in recorder pedagogy from Indiana University, serving as Associate Instructor in the Pre-college Program. With a Fulbright scholarship, he pursued further studies at Rotterdam Conservatory. In addition to teaching workshops nationally, he has given master classes at Northwestern University and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He has performed from California to New York, as well as in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and live on WFMT. Patrick has just released a new double CD, "Telemann: Canons and Duos". Click here to find out more information and place an order.

Cynthia Papierniak (Piano)
Cynthia has taught at the Suzuki Music School for sixteen years. She earned a B.A. in Music Education from Montclair State College, after which she spent two years in the U.S. Navy at Great Lakes, IL. She earned a M.S. in Biology from IIT, doing research on yeast (however, she has yet to bake bread). Cynthia’s husband Michael plays the French horn and her daughter Anna (a SMS alumna) teaches the violin. This contributes to a lot of music but a messy house. Cynthia also teaches piano out of her Oak Park studio and DePaul University’s Community Music Division.