Justine Sarmiento

Justine has been teaching piano and music theory since 2017. She enjoys the opportunity to engage with passionate, curious learners and has worked with students ages 3 through adults. She started out teaching children’s group lessons, where she developed her own curriculum to introduce fundamental music concepts to young musicians. This included rhythm training, note reading, basic keyboard techniques, and singing. She continues to use this method for young beginners, and overall works hard to create an environment where aspiring musicians can explore their own creativity. She currently teaches private one-on-one lessons for piano, encouraging students to engage with different areas of music in order to develop their artistry and musicianship. She is also experienced with preparing students for the Certificate of Merit and Royal School of Music exams.

Raised in a musical family, Justine spent her childhood in four different countries and grew up listening to different genres of music. Her parents met in the church choir and her dad was a lead guitarist in his band, where they performed in the Philippines and Vietnam. When her family moved to Singapore, she began taking piano lessons at age 4 and enjoyed putting on performances of her own compositions for friends and family. After moving to the United States, Justine continued her piano studies and trained classically, while exploring more genres on her own. At age 9, she taught herself to play the ukulele and guitar. At age 12, she took up violin and cajon. In high school, she started a band with friends and performed at charity dinners and benefit shows hosted by local Rotary International Clubs. She completed the Certificate of Merit program in piano in 2018.

In her free time, Justine likes to study other languages and volunteers as an English tutor for senior immigrants. Influenced by her multicultural childhood, she received her B.A. in International Studies and Sociology from UC San Diego in 2021, with a language focus in French. She has also studied Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and German, among others. Justine believes that learning languages is not so different from learning music; her experience with linguistics helps her better connect with students, understand their goals and needs, and create a personalized learning plan that sets them up for success.