David Wong
Violin Teacher

Sarah Gleeson
Singing, Piano Teacher

Sarah is a young and passionate singing teacher who is dedicated to unlock her student’s vocal potential.

With Sarah’s extensive experience and expertise in the art of singing, she has mastered her skills and developed a deep understanding of vocal and performance techniques. Sarah has had a lot of experience in performing including as a soloist, duets, small groups and choirs. She recently graduated high school with a band 6 in music and was heavily involved with leadership roles in performing arts. As Sarah has been taught by a large variety of singing and music teachers, she has been able to combine all the difference teaching styles to accommodate to her students needs. She is able to teach all skill levels and ages to which she personalises the lesson towards her students capabilities. Sarah strives to create a nurturing learning environment where students feel comfortable and empowered to explore and develop their voices. Sarah places a great emphasis on proper vocal technique, breath control, posture, and expression, ensuring a solid foundation for vocal growth.

Sarah joined the Learn 2 Play Music team in 2023 and currently teaches singing on Saturdays.

Evelyn Lam
School Co-Ordinator / Retail Sales / Guitar Teacher

Evelyn is a young technical guitar player, who enjoys working with students to achieve their personal goals in music.

Coming from a family of great guitar players, Evelyn picked up the instrument at a very young age being taught by various different teachers before continuing her musical development on her own. Having had different teachers with different styles, she’s learnt the importance of being flexible to deliver the lesson material that each individual student is after.

Evelyn honed her skills playing various live performances throughout high school, as well as recording some pieces in her school’s studio.

Evelyn joined the Learn 2 Play Music team in 2023 teaching guitar on Wednesday afternoons and has also taken on working in our retail sales team.

Zach Sandstrom
Guitar, Drums, Banjo Teacher

Coming Soon

Sarah Wellington
Singing, Piano Teacher

Haruna Thorburn
Harp, Piano Teacher

Haruna is an energetic and passionate piano and harp teacher with over 10 years of experience.

Haruna always loved listening to music when she was younger but never had an opportunity to learn an instrument until adulthood. Haruna started playing music with the harp, being taught classically by highly experienced teachers, before adding piano to her repertoire. She has been performing semi-professionally, in many settings, varying from cafes and restaurants to more formal functions such as weddings.

Having been taught by such professional teachers as an adult Haruna is able to fully utilize her experience when teaching her own students, and has a great understanding of how exciting coming to lessons for the first time can be.

She began teaching at Learn 2 Play Music in 2022, bringing with her experience from running her own lessons privately. She began teaching one day a week, and quickly became a very popular teacher, and as such took on more and more days. Haruna is currently available teaching Piano and Harp on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Katie Malone
Singing, Piano Teacher

Katie has always had a passion for music.  

She has been playing the Piano from a young age, completing a variety of music examinations, and has also trained in Vocals from Jazz to Opera, Pop to Indie and even Musical Theatre, Katie has trained in a multitude of styles and can teach self-accompaniment.  

Katie currently offers Piano and Vocal Lessons.

Max Cole
Drum, Guitar Teacher

Max Cole is a well-versed drummer with over a decade of experience, and a natural guitarist. With a background in fast metal playing and being classically trained he is capable of highly technical performances.

Max began playing drums in primary school band, continuing all the way through high school, playing with several ensembles throughout his weeks at this time. He also picked up guitar and bass during his high school years, and quickly began performing with rock bands on these instruments too. Max currently performs and records regularly with two different groups ranging across Indie Pop Rock and Metal.

He began teaching music at the age of 12 from home, before teaching the Woolooware Primary School Band drummers. He joined the Learn 2 Play Music team in 2020 and is also teaching guitar ensemble at Woolooware High School. All of this making him one of the most experienced music teachers around for his young age.

His extensive study at a young age, strong experience performing, and many years teaching has provided him with the knowledge and skills, not only to play very impressive parts, but to break these parts down and present them to students in an engaging and understandable manner.

Pauline Johnson
Piano, Wood wind Teacher

Pauline has a Diploma of music from the Australian Institute of Music and a Bachelor of Music and Music Education UNSW 2005. She has taught piano and woodwinds (flute, clarinet, saxophone) for over 30 years. Music exams like AMEB have always been motivators for her students, she has taught students from 4-year-olds to well over 70.
Pauline believes that to give a child music is a gift for life. If they can also read music notation this will expand your child’s access to limitless repertoire independent from the teacher and the music studio room.

Pauline has played keyboards in the Band Diamantina for 15 years. She has also played flute for 10 years in the duo Flute D’Amour. Currently she plays in a recorder consort.

Cameron Osbourne
Guitar, Bass, Ukulele, Teacher

Cameron Osborne is a young and enthusiastic teacher who is experienced with a variety of instruments, mainly focused on guitar and bass with a strong background in keys.

His journey began in primary school, taking piano lessons, before discovering his love for the electric guitar just a few years later. Cameron studied classical composition in high school, receiving high distinction for his major works, ranking first in his class.

Cameron studied extensively to achieve a diploma in music performance, gaining a thorough understanding of music theory and gaining strong performance experience along the way. He also became very passionate about writing and recording music, especially experimenting with different techniques and styles.

He came to Learn 2 Play Music as a new teacher, keen to take advantage of the vast experience available to him from our other teachers. Always willing to challenge himself he has become a very strong teacher, able to call on his experience across many instruments and genres, to help new students become inspired, unlock their creativity and achieve their musical goals.

James Squier
Director, Bass, Guitar, Ukulele Teacher

James is a highly skilled and highly experienced guitarist and bass player who is also one of the owners of Learn 2 Play Music. Having played almost all styles of music for many years and being featured in many different bands in that time, he’s developed a knack for learning new songs, styles and techniques quickly and being able to explain how best to approach music with students and other musicians.

James first picked up a guitar during high school, and quickly started teaching himself all of his favourite rock songs, which ensured a well developed playing technique. Going on to study a Diploma in music was a huge learning curve. Here he developed an extensive understanding of music theory, began learning about music education, as well as gaining experience in almost of styles of music, from jazz, pop, classical, country to rock. It was during this time that he also refined his live performance skills, having shared the stage with many different musicians.

Busking became a test to put all the different elements of what James had learnt together. Looking at it as ‘practicing guitar in public’, he very quickly learnt how to practically use the music theory he’d spent so long studying, and how to draw influences from all the different styles of music he’d played.

James’ experience with the bass guitar began by being asked to play for a band which would later become GYPSY. Having never played the instrument or any of the songs before, he not only set about learning them quickly, but was playing on stage with the band less than a week later!

Now with years of experience on the instrument, and countless shows performed up and down the country, James is just as accomplished on bass as he is guitar.

James joined Learn 2 Play Music as a teacher in 2015, and over the years became more involved with the business until eventually pairing up with his dad Michael to take over the school in 2022.
Over all these years James has run hundreds if not thousands of lessons and worked alongside dozens of other teachers. During all this learning how best to offer great learning experiences to his students, how to draw on his knowledge, and how to make lessons both fun and productive.

Stefano Locascio
Uke, Guitar, Bass, Drum Teacher

Stefano is a producer, songwriter, professional guitarist, bass & drum teacher. With his multi talented skills, the ability to learn songs quickly, and more than 15 years experience, he has developed a personal style of playing influenced by listening to many famous artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Slash, John Mayer, B.B king, David Gilmour, John Petrucci and in particular to many different artist from the 80’s. Due to his artistic abilities he can easily work with musicians as well as students of all ages to teach guitar, bass & drums and he is a friendly, patient and supportive teacher.

Stefano started playing guitar at age of 13 listening to the most famous hard rock bands such as AC/DC, QUEEN, LED ZEPPELIN, KISS, IRON MAIDEN, GUNS N’ ROSES, VAN HALEN and many more.

Since he discovered his talent, he decided to study music theory and percussion at the Italian conservatorium. He has been working for a long time as a session musician for many bands and artists playing in weddings, pubs, public venues, music festivals and clubs.

He is currently the lead guitarist for the synth/rock band The Bright Young Things. He has worked to compose, produce and record an album with the band for release March 2020.

Since joining Learn2Play Music and he has been offering learning experiences in guitar, bass and drums that are tailored to the needs of his students to make lessons fun whilst achieving learning objectives

Cameron Solomon
Piano Teacher

Nochi Wakeford
Drum Teacher

Nochi began playing drums in the primary school band, continuing all the way through high school, playing with several ensembles from Concert Bands to Jazz groups. Nochi currently records and performs regularly with two different bands ranging from Rockabilly to Hard Rock. 

Nochi has spent most of his life in and around music, playing for the last 16 years and recording over the last 5.

Nochi has been teaching for a few years; he is currently teaching at Several Music schools as well as a number of Band Programs at various schools in southern Sydney, joining the Learn 2 Play Music team in 2024.

Nochi has extensive experience working with children. For the last 10 years he has been teaching skateboarding, being involved and leading at Sunday Schools and Youth Groups as well as teaching music.