Olesya’s Story
Music Teacher LA came into existence out of one incredibly skilled teacher and musician’s passion for music and teaching, her creative ability to motivate and excite students, and her desire to spread the love of music and learning to musically inclined children and adults.
Olesya MacNeil is the founder of the Music Teacher LA.
Early Years
As a child, she studied piano and voice and took her first piano lessons from her mother at age 5.
Olesya attended a music school in the former Soviet Union for 7 years and then pursued her Master’s in Music, Psychology, and Pedagogy at the Omsk State University in Russia. During her years at the university, She performed on stage and on the national radio. She also worked with musically gifted children at local schools. Finally, during her years of study, Olesya completed extensive research on children’s intelligence relative to the study of music.
After immigrating to the US in 1997, Olesya continued teaching music. She taught the children of Larry King, Billy Baldwin, Dan Beckerman (the LA Kings’ governor), Susannah Grant (the Oscar-winning screenwriter), Bennett Schneir (the animated film producer), and many other professionals.
Additionally, Olesya worked with special needs kids. Working with children was the most incredible gift for Olesya. Not to mention that she was very popular and sought after teacher. The families she worked with were referring each other to Olesya and they were meeting and building new friendships at Olesya’s favored recital parties.
Olesya worked 7 days a week, providing at one point a total of 53 in-home private lessons each week. She has been traveling to her students and working 12 to 16 hours each day, including weekends. Olesya wished to teach fewer students. However, she not only created close ties with all the families but the families got to know each other and they all liked Olesya. So, Olesya simply could not quit any student without offending the family.
Olesya has been teaching each student for 6-7 years on average. During such a long period of time, her students’ goals and achievements became part of Olesya’s life.
Olesya’s Acquired Experiences
Olesya’s experiences working with different people were a book to write.
Olesya once taught a beautiful 7 year old girl with amazingly big and sad blue eyes. The girl was the oldest child of 5 kids in the religious family. The child loved her piano lessons. However, she rarely practiced. When Olesya asked her why she didn’t practice she honestly said that she really wanted, but her mom asked her to hold her newborn sister… This 7 year old really enjoyed playing the piano, but sometimes she would question why she should learn the piano or anything else, “Because I will be married the moment I’ll finish school. My family will find someone for me. I will never go to work and will have many children.” Olesya was using all her creative ideas to ignite this little girl’s desire to learn and feel unique and important. This little girl can grow and help her own future children love and understand music.
Olesya developed individual homework methods for each of her students to encourage them to practice. She was satisfied seeing her students succeed and happy to learn more and more.
Olesya’s recital parties were very inspiring and fun. She would “rent” a mansion or a large house of one of her students. Furthermore, she would break all her students into 15-20 performers per recital. One of her students baked cupcakes, where each cupcake was a music measure from a famous opera.
Olesya trained her students how to successfully perform and overcome their shyness in recitals. In the 
end, her methods worked. There were happy moments in students’ lives when they performed in recitals and students’ parents saw their achievements.
Olesya has been saving her students’ drawings, essays, sayings, photos… She has saved them as very precious items from her life.
Music Teacher LA was born
After several years in the private piano teaching in the US, rather overwhelmed by the demand for someone of her talent and teaching skills, Olesya assembled music teachers in Los Angeles with her caliber of credentials and expertise under one roof and named it “Music Teacher LA”.
It is not easy to become a Music Teacher LA teacher. Of all the musicians Olesya interviews who wish to join the team, only 2% meet her rigorous standards of:
- Advanced music education
- Professional musical accomplishments
- Education and experience in teaching
- The special and unique personality type that is creative and motivates students
- THE BURNING DESIRE TO TEACH vs. MAKE MONEY TEACHING MUSIC
Music Teacher LA today offers In-Home, LIVE Online, and Studio music lessons on all instruments and voice, and gift certificates you can personalize for your loved ones.
Not to mention, the school provides a few hundreds of individual, one-on-one music lessons each week!
