Teaching Team

All Academy teaching staff have have a tertiary music education or at least 10-years' teaching experience. Every teacher is subject to ongoing guidance and training in research-based pedagogy. Our teachers are a community of practice that collaborates, collectively forms pedagogical strategies, shares ideas, experiences and research to improve the learning experience and outcomes for each individual student. We do this through informal conversations in the studio, formal training sessions, one-to-one mentorship, and professional development. All teachers are under the supervision and mentorship of the Academy Director. All of this ensures consistency across all teaching and learning in approach and quality.

Nate Wood

(violin)

Award-winning qualified leadership

Advantage Music Academy is under the direction of Steven Armstrong, a former lecturer of musicology and recipient of two university teaching excellence awards from The University of Western Australia and from the Student Guild of the same institute. Steven has over 20 years of instrumental teaching experience and holds a Bachelor of Music (Performance) with First Class Honours and received several awards and scholarships across undergraduate and postgraduate studies. He was accepted into the PhD program at UWA but withdrew after 3 years abandoning academia to focus on education and now holds a Postgraduate Certificate and a Master's degree in Educational Leadership. In 2023 he was invited to join the Australian Music Examination Board as an examiner.

Grace Chen

(piano)

Tyler Anderson

(voice)

Brock Stannard-Brown

(piano)

Callum Woodward

(guitar)

Student-centred Philosophy

We understand that by enrolling yourself or your child(ren) in our programs, you are making an investment and we take that seriously. We consider our role as educators a great privilege and responsibility. At the centre of everything we do are the best interests of every student.

Learning at Advantage Music Academy is not just about casually taking some classes or getting an A, or racing to eighth grade or winning competitions, but about the pursuit of the enrichment of the capabilities of the mind, personal growth, learning how to learn, striving for excellence, being the best you can be and having an encounter with even just a little of the incredibly complex and beautiful language of music and its transformative and communicate power.

That’s what Advantage Music Academy is really about.

Student-centred Mission

Through a culture of support and celebration, of persistence and patience and of growth through success and failure, in every lesson we pursue opportunities to:

expand the capabilities of the mind,
facilitate exploration and discovery,
build confidence and self-efficacy,
foster value of excellence,
enrich our students’ experience of the world,
encourage the desire to explore what it means to be human,
connect better with ourselves and with others,
encounter the transformative and communicative power of music.

Student-centred Vision

Our vision is to be widely recognised for our standards of excellence, the care and responsibility we take for every individual student’s learning and for adding further value and meaning to our students’ and their families’ lives.

Jonathon Astbury

(piano)

Segolene Leroux

(piano)

Keenan Levis

(guitar)

Ashka Rhodes

(voice)

Student-centred Pedagogy

We are informed, intentional and responsive in how we deliver every lesson. We facilitate learning through scaffolding, setting high expectations, teaching effective practice techniques, fostering ownership of learning and creating opportunities for exploration and improvisation. We develop highly capable autonomous learners who are able to apply skills and knowledge from past learning experiences to new challenges. We continuously improve our pedagogy through research, critical self-reflection, professional learning and challenging our own assumptions and attitudes. Through respectful and reciprocal relationships with students and their families we respond to the expectations and context of each family to achieve improved outcomes for each student.