About Us

Inspiring a love of music

Our goal is to pass on musicianship in an engaging way, using a variety of methods and materials. We teach from a classical approach. This doesn’t mean we teach only classical music, but we place a high emphasis on technique, music theory, and literacy of music notation. We aim to create independent learners. Regardless of how long a student studies with us, it is our hope that he or she will be equipped with the knowledge and curiosity to teach themselves pieces at or below their current level.

We strive to make our lessons fun and engaging. Learning is its own reward, yes, but sometimes an extra incentive is helpful for our young learners. We use an assortment of prizes and small competitions throughout the year. Participation is optional – but the principle is simply that we want to inspire each student to do his or her best work.

Meet our staff

Elizabeth Hasbrouk
Piano

Elizabeth (Noonan) Hasbrouck holds a M.M. in piano performance from the University of Southern Maine, where she studied with Laura Kargul. Elizabeth also earned a B.Mus. degree in piano performance with pedagogy emphasis from USM, studying piano with Laura Kargul and Annie Antonacos, and piano pedagogy with Christine Kissack. Prior to USM, she studied for two years at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, majoring in sacred music with a piano emphasis. Elizabeth has over eighteen years of teaching experience, fourteen of which have been in Cumberland.

Elizabeth is also on faculty at the University of Southern Maine as artist faculty, teaching class piano to music majors. She is a member of the Maine Music Teachers Association and the Music Teachers National Association, completing the requirements for NCTM certification in piano teaching through the MTNA in 2013. She has accompanied numerous recitals, vocal competitions (NATs), and served as accompanist for church services.

Elizabeth was a winner of the Anne Gannett Scholarship from the Maine Federation of Music Clubs (2005), was the recipient of the A. H. Chatfield, Jr. Piano Prize through Bay Chamber Concerts (2006), and was awarded a prize in the Rossini Club’s Wright scholarship competition (2006). In 2008, she received the MTNA StAR Studio Teacher Fellowship Award and was inducted into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Elizabeth resides in Cumberland Center with her husband and their three children and a menagerie of animals. Her side passion is working with the elderly, particularly those with dementia, and she has worked in the medical field as a CNA and CRMA. She can often be heard singing to and with residents, finding that often when the memory fails to remember words, melodies remain. 

Lois Hasbrouk
Piano

Lois Hasbrouck holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from Cairn University in Langhorne, PA. She began piano lessons at the age of six and continued them into high school, as well as some of her college years. After graduation, she began teaching piano lessons and music classes in Portland and Gorham.

Marriage took Lois to southern New Hampshire for 15 years, then the family moved to Maine in 2001. She has taught piano for about 30 of these years, while also raising and homeschooling her now-grown children. She misses the days of singing and playing together, but is happy that each one of her five children maintains a love for music.

Lois’ musical involvement has included choral singing and conducting, accompanying choirs, vocalists, and instrumentalists, some composing and arranging, and being a church director of music and worship. She resides in Gorham with her husband, daughter, and occasionally her college-student son.

Rebecca Shaw
Piano
Rebecca Shaw has her Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of New England and a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work from Gordon College. She has worked in the clinical social work field primarily with children and their families on the Autism Spectrum and children and families with mental health diagnoses. Rebecca has played classical piano for twenty years and sought a career change after having her first child. Rebecca enjoys spending time outdoors with her family in all seasons.
Violin

Sylvia Schwartz  Deeply inspired by the relationship between music, movement, and dance, violinist and teacher Sylvia Schwartz is a passionate chamber musician in both modern and historical performance practices. The power of music to heal and to bring us together drives Sylvia to teach through the Suzuki method and to perform wherever she can, from the Scarborough, ME COVID-19 vaccine clinic to Shostakovich Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia—and many places in between.

Sylvia’s history with the Suzuki method goes back to her first experiences with the violin. After a demonstration in her Kindermusik class by Stow, MA-based Suzuki teacher Doris Goldman, Sylvia was very definite about starting lessons. Her mother believes at least in part Sylvia was drawn to Doris’s vibrant, deeply kind, nurturing, and loving spirit, as well as her joy in making and teaching music. Sylvia strives to bring that same deeply kind spirit to her own students, sharing her own love of performing and music in community as she gives students the technical, artistic, and practice tools to develop into capable, creative, and healthy musicians—and people! She has taught at Winchester Community Music School, Vienna Music Institute in Irvine, CA, the Boston Music Project (when it was JQOP), and was Interim Orchestra Director for three fabulous orchestras at Woodbridge HS, a Grammy Signature School.
 
She steadfastly believes that every child—every person—can learn, and makes it her business to meet each individual where they are on their journey of learning, discovery, and mastery. Sylvia enriches the Suzuki curriculum by drawing on her own experiences with Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique somatic approaches for healthy technique, dance, theatre, and historical performance—something that in particular offers great insights into Shinichi Suzuki’s choice to include so many baroque works in his foundational repertoire. Truly, a sense of rhetoric in this music sets up compelling musicianship in music of any era and genre, and speaks to our own humanity.
 
Sylvia is an active and committed performer, enjoying the ways her performing and teaching inform and enrich each other. With her partner, cellist/gambist John Ott, as Guts Baroque, she has been determinedly reimagining the possibilities of historically-informed chamber music performances, rising out of the ashes of March 2020 to play a new livestreamed concert each month and looking ahead to the collaborative opportunities of digital production. In the “before times,” Sylvia performed with Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, Los Angeles Baroque, L’Esprit Baroque, LA Master Chorale, Harvard Baroque, Eudaimonia: A Purposeful Period Band, and the Amherst Baroque Academy opera orchestra. She was thrilled to return to live performances with Portland Bach Experience 2021, playing ten concerts in two weeks as Concertmaster of the festival orchestra and as Guts Baroque.
 

Sylvia earned a M.Mus. in Violin Performance from Longy School of Music, where she studied violin with Laura Bossert and historically-informed performance with Dana Maiben, Na’ama Lion, and Vivian Montgomery. She has continued her education with Julie Andrijeski and Elizabeth Blumenstock. She also earned a B.S. in Engineering from Olin College, where she was Concertmaster of the Olin Conductorless Orchestra.

Brynn Lewallen
Piano & Voice
Brynn Lewallen is a performer and teaching artist based in Portland. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance from Denison University, and a Master of Music in Music Performance from Arizona State University. In addition to teaching piano and voice for over fifteen years, Brynn has also served as a collaborative pianist, church pianist, music director and arranger. Brynn credits Robin McNeil, her middle- and high school piano teacher, with fostering her love of piano music and music theory/music history.

As a pianist and singer, Brynn has performed across the country in regional theaters and on national tour; her most recent favorite performance contract was in Alaska, where she sang and played piano near Denali National Park. Brynn has received top awards from organizations including the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the Classical Singer Competition.

In addition to music, Brynn is active as a theater teacher with STAGES Youth Theater (Portland) and The Theater Project (Brunswick). When she’s not teaching or performing, you can usually find Brynn in the outdoors– favorite activities include hiking, rock climbing, cross-country skiing, and practicing her earsplitting whistle!

Morgan Lee
Piano

Morgan Lee has nearly ten years of experience in private teaching and has served as adjunct piano faculty at Eastern Connecticut State University, piano faculty at the Bronx Conservatory of Music, and a teaching fellow at Mannes School of Music. She currently serves as staff accompanist at the University of Southern Maine Osher School of Music. In 2022 she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Connecticut, where she studied with Angelina Gadeliya. She also holds a Master of Music from Mannes School of Music and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She has participated in various music festivals in the US and abroad, including the Mannes Beethoven Institute, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, the International Academy of Music, the Puigcerdà Music Festival, Brevard Music Institute, and Eastern Music Festival, and has performed recitals in New York City, Italy, Spain, France, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Morgan recently settled in Augusta with her husband Peter and labradoodle Kebo, and likes to divide her time between practicing piano and baking sourdough.

Carmen Buckley
Flute & Piano

Carmen Buckley received a BA in flute performance from the University of Maine at Orono in 1992. She has attended masterclasses with Paula Robison, Robert Dick, Kay Gardner, Chris Norman and Paige Dashner Long.

Carmen has taught flute, recorder and music theory in Waldorf schools, local studios, and freelanced throughout New England for the past thirty years. In New Hampshire she has performed with the Keene Chamber Orchestra, Monadnock Flutes and the Keene State College Flute Ensemble.

In addition to teaching and performing, she continues to study and practice the low flutes of the flute family, the alto and bass, traditional wooden flute and bansuri.

Jennifer Eaton
Admin/Billing

Jennifer Eaton raised her family in Maine and now lives in Virginia, where she works as a standardized patient, runs an Airbnb and leads a ministry for 20 Somethings+. Reach out to her any time you have questions or concerns about billing, at billing@stonecoastmusic.com.

Our daughter has improved so much since she has been working with Liz, the owner of Hasbrouck Piano studio. She shows interest in playing and has gained confidence which for a 13 year old is a good thing. Thank you Liz!

– Vicky F.

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