After School Music Program

Patricia Crosby is Coordinator of Lower School Assemblies, and Director of the all-school After School Music Program, ASMP.  She is also a private piano instructor, and organist at her church.  Ms. Crosby graduated with a BFA in Music Education and Organ Performance from Carnegie Mellon University. For eighteen years, she was Assistant Organist/Choirmaster at Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside.  During those years, Ms. Crosby came to The Ellis School to teach Fifth and Sixth Grade Music and to accompany the Eighth Grade Operetta.  In her exciting, more than twenty-five years at Ellis, she has taught in all three divisions and accompanied many concerts and shows.

Galina Istomin was born and educated in Russia and holds a Master's degree in music from St. Petersburg Conservatory. She started teaching at Ellis in 1994 and is responsible for starting the string program and Silver Strings. She is a former recipient of the Rimsky-Korsakov Honorary Stipend and taught at the Tchaikovsky Music School for Children. She also created the Shadyside Chamber music festival and worked at the Duquesne University City Music Center.

Junyi "Jimmy" Liu graduated in 2011 from Carnegie Mellon University with a Masters of Music in Piano Performance. He also received his Bachelors in Piano Performance from CMU in 2009 with University Honors.  In addition to being at Ellis, Jimmy also teaches piano at Carnegie Mellon's Preparatory School and is the musical director and pianist of Epworth United Methodist Church. He is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society.

Visit Mr. Liu's channel on YouTube to view his performances.

Lucy Scandrett is very active as a performer and teacher in Western Pennsylvania. For many years she was Principal Harpist for the Pittsburgh Ballet Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra and the Johnstown Symphony. Lucy also was solo harpist with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble with whom she has recorded contemporary music for CRI records. Presently she is active as a recitalist and performs regularly with the Civic Light Opera Orchestra, the McKeesport Symphony Orchestra, and Gateway to the Arts. She has played for numerous shows and performers ranging from John Denver and Josh Groban to Yul Brynner, Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti. She is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, where she began the study of the harp at age three with her mother, Elizabeth Clark. She began her professional career at age 16 playing the Fantastiks at Barter Theater and has a degree in Harp Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where she studied with Lucy Lewis. She received a Master of Music degree in Musicology from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina where she was a teaching assistant and performer. Lucy also studied privately with Lucile Lawrence and Alice Chalifoux.

Lucy is adjunct Professor of Harp at Indiana University of PA and maintains an extensive private studio, is President of the American Harp Society and has served in numerous other capacities with the organization.