Today we’d like to introduce you to Hülya Alpakin Luethi.
Hülya, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My home country is Turkey. My passion for music started when I was very little. As I was a little girl my most favorite play was creating costumes from my mom’s clothes, curtains, blankets or any fabrics I could find. I was holding a round blow dry hair brush as a microphone and singing popular songs.
After my sister’s violin teacher gave us a piano of his father who composed the Turkish National Anthem on that piano my interest started changing. Thereafter, I was playing all of the songs that I was singing before by ear on the piano. My parents realized that I had a good musical ear and they encouraged me to take the auditions for a Music School (Conservatory) after 5th grade. I passed the auditions and studied there through middle, high schools, and college. As a result, I received my Bachelor’s degree in piano performance from Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.
During all my school years, I also taught piano. When I was 13 or 14 years old my piano teacher asked me to go to student’s homes to teach piano. Although I was very young and still learning how to play piano myself, I bravely said “Yes”. Therefore, my piano teaching journey started. Because I was so young and physically so tiny, everybody was surprised when I introduced myself as piano teacher. Some students lived far away and I even had to travel there with my mom. I was lucky and ambitious I guess because by the word of mouth I had more and more students.
After I finished the Music College I taught piano privately and at various music schools in Istanbul. In the meantime, I performed as a soloist and in ensembles until I moved to the United States in 2000 August. The reason I came to the US was getting more academic degrees in piano, meeting with more musicians and exploring the world in my field. Hence, I received my Master’s Degree and Performance Diploma at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Since I came to the US I played in ensembles, solo recitals, WFMT radio programs, and for ballet schools such as Joffrey Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Company.
My big passion for teaching grew more and more every day. I worked in many different schools as a piano instructor until I decided to run my own school. Especially after I had my twins Alina and Onur, they are 5 years old now, I started enjoying teaching to very young kids more and more. It was always fun to work on little art projects and musical games with my own babies.
These fun times with them made me to search how I could integrate babies or toddlers more into the music and prepare them for playing an instrument with a well-trained musical ear. I found this great program called Music Together and got the training and license to provide it in my own center. And here I am, I finally made my dream come true and I am running my music and art school Sparkling Art Piano!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like everybody else’s story of course there were very difficult days. I think the biggest difficulty was coming to a country without speaking or understanding the language. After I came here, I studied English to be able to continue my academic studies. Learning a language after a certain age is not easy. It takes at least a few years to fully explain yourself or understand others. Your mind works faster than your tongue. You know more than you can say especially in your profession but many times you find yourself talking like a baby, simple and not elaborate.
To adapt myself to the local culture was not too hard. Yet of course it took a while. Especially to understand the expectations of families about their children’s education requires experience. There could be many things right to you but not to the culture where you live. I believe to work in many different and diverse schools, which is one of the greatest values of the US, highly helped me to understand the American culture and to unite it with my own culture; therefore I created my own unique way.
After all, the best part of my job is working mostly with children and people who love art! Children are children no matter where they are. All innocent, happy and ready to observe everything you teach them like a sponge. In the meantime music and visual arts are global. If your heart is full of love you can make music or art wherever you are with peace, no countries or no borders.
Sparkling Art Piano – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Sparkling Art Piano still is a baby. We have been around since September 2016. We offer piano lessons from 3.5 and up. Music Together classes for babies/toddlers and their families, art classes for children and adults. We will begin guitar and ukulele classes very soon. We organize both art and music birthday parties. Basically, you can find classes in our school starting from pregnancy (for Music Together moms) and up.
All of our instructors have academic degrees in their field or are working on it. Making our students love what they do is our first goal. While they learn solid skills both in visual art and music they also have fun. Even in our drop-in classes we love to see our students learn something from just one time class.
We are one of the a few schools in Chicago which offers both Visual Art Classes and Music classes for all ages. Sparkling Art Piano is conveniently located in the center of Lincoln Park neighborhood. We love what we do and proudly continue to add some sparkles to families’ life through music and Visual Art in Chicago.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There are many! To achieve my goals always makes me proud. To change my country without knowing the local language and to adapt to the culture, learn the language, still finishing the schools with the highest grades felt great. To see my mom’s and dad’s excitement in their eyes made me proud. Applause after a concert makes me feel enormously relaxed and proud.
However, these days what makes me most proud is to see our students finishing their classes with a big smile on their face and coming back to the next class with excitement. An unexpected hug from a student is a bonus and melts my heart!
Contact Info:
- Address: Sparkling Art Piano
1540 W Fullerton Ave Chicago,IL 60614 - Website: http://www.sparklingartpiano.com
- Phone: (773)770-5640
- Email: info@sparklingartpiano.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sparklingartpiano/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/hulyasparkling
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sparkling-art-piano-chicago
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
