Nobu Sakurai

Owner/Teacher

• BA in Piano Performance, University of San Diego • Master of Education, Chaminade University of Honolulu Nobu was born and raised in Japan. She started piano lessons at the age of 9 under Ms. Lei Tokuda. After earning a college degree in English language in Nagasaki, Japan, she moved to San Diego, California for further education. Nobu earned a BA in piano performance at the University of San Diego where she studied under Dr. Kay Etheridge. She also studied with Dr. Yongsheng Liang in San Diego. While still a student at USD, Nobu accompanied in church and also taught 20 private piano students for 3 years. In October 2002, Nobu moved to Hawaii and in January 2003, began teaching piano weekends, at Piano Outlet in Pearl Highlands Center. Nobu earned an M.Ed at Chaminade Univerisity of Honolulu while she was a full time language teacher at Saint Louis School and a part time piano teacher at Piano Outlet. When Piano Outlet closed in March 2011, Nobu opened her very own studio in Pearl City. Since then, she has concentrated on teaching piano in her studio. Besides teaching, she also performs piano for dinner receptions and retirement houses. In Hawaii, Nobu studied piano for a several years under Ms. Paulette Pacific and she has also studied under Mr. Ernest Chang and Ms. Kaoru Lyddon. Besides a love of classical music, Nobu is crazy about Broadway musicals! She has seen a lot of Broadway musicals in many places, included the West End in London and New York City. She has also studied voice under Ms. Kristian Lei since 2014 and enjoys singing Broadway music, Italian opera and Disney music. Her other passions are classical ballet, impressionism art, baking and traveling. Her very first trip abroad was to the Philippines where she attended the University of Baguio as an exchange student for a year when she was 18. Since then, she has visited so many different countries and cities. Her favorite cities are NYC, Paris, Salzburg and Vienna! And of course she loves Japan so much and often flies back to spend some time with her family & friends. Nobu is thrilled to start her rythmique (eurhythmics) classes to toddlers in May, 2016 and hoping lots of kids in Hawaii will be involved & enjoy the music!