Shaun has been truly excellent in “pulling out the gold” in me and helping to discover my own individual style. I have been so blessed to work with an instructor who is so warm, and caring to help build my own success as an artist!

What I like about taking lessons from Shaun is that he’ll give you his professional opinion, but ultimately the student is the one making the musical choices. The lessons tend to be rigorous, yet fun. I always walk away feeling encouraged and having learned something new.

Having worked with Shaun for around six months now, one of the things that really impresses me is his positivity and support. Shaun is far more optimistic and confident about what I can accomplish than I am, and it helps motivate and encourage me when I'm feeling discouraged about my progress.

At Shaun's core is a passion for music and people that few can rival. He works tirelessly to help students discover their own personal style. And he changes his approach to based on the student's own learning style. He is patient and understanding, but he also knows when to push. He has a gift for teaching.If you give Shaun a real chance, you will be exposed to an amazing array of musical styles, genres, and approaches to playing the cello. You will become a much better musician, and a freer player of the instrument. But more than that, you might find you walk away a different person.

Shaun is an absolutely amazing teacher and person! I took lessons from him for years. When I started my lessons, playing the cello was a hobby, but when I finished he transformed it into my passion. He also helped to me to get out of my classical music comfort zone and learn to love improvising and playing other genres as well. Lessons with Shaun were the highlight of my week every week and he never failed to put a smile on my face. My lessons with Shaun were extremely rewarding and he even helped me to get a cello scholarship to the school I was wanting to get in to! I highly recommend Shaun for whatever level you are at in you music journey!

Shaun has a unique ability to make his students feel really seen- not just as a musician, but as a whole person. Connecting in this way means he is able to help his students to identify and gently work on removing the barriers that prevent them from fully expressing themselves through the cello. He creates a safe space to take risks and is both challenging and nurturing as a teacher. I would highly recommend him for cellists of all ages and experience levels.

I love his openness and encouragement of improvisation and more new age music.

The atmosphere is relaxed, and I feel like I learn better that way and still have a lot of fun. I love that lessons are never confined to one style of music and that the lesson plan can always change to reflect what I want to do, or what I need to work on, or even something that is just entirely for fun. And I love that no matter what the lesson entails, it is always something useful that I can apply when I practice.

My older son decided to play cello (the best instrument) and, at some point, begged to be in lessons. We were fortunate to find Shaun through his orchestra teacher at school. Shaun provided a fun, relaxed atmosphere in which his lessons were inspirational and provided good foundations for the years ahead. Shaun is able to easily relate and talk to his students of all ages which was helpful for my shy, quiet kid. As a result of my older son's experiences (x 5 years) with Shaun, his younger brother opted to take cello, too, four years later (x 2 1/2 years). They both enjoyed learning from Shaun as well as recording duets that they (along with Shaun) played together. They learned a lot and for that we are very thankful.

I enjoy Shaun's teaching style over any other because of how free he is with his word and his playing. He can dazzle you with technique and creativity and then show you how it is done using the craziest, and yet somehow the most rational of metaphors, examples, and techniques. Through our talks about music and life in combination, I have been so glad to have him as a teacher and a great friend in a musical journey. Every lesson is another journey through how beautiful a life of music can be and has been!

[Shaun] is very open to new and non-traditional exploration of the music but has such a great grounding in the more classical approach as well that it provides a much richer learning opportunity. He is very accepting of the fact that I have decided to learn to play the instrument left-handed (finger with the right hand, bow with the left) and explore the additional musical possibilities of an electric rather than acoustic cello. He is also very supportive of his students playing (even in the strangled cat phase!) and always finds the positive even in a “less than stellar” performance. He is probably one of the few teachers who could take my stated desire to play Daft Punk on the cello in stride.