Elisabeth Johnson is a graduate of The Chicago School of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and holds a degree in Musicology with an emphasis in Violin Performance. She received her violin training with Cyrus Forough and previously studied violin with Mathias Tacke at Northern Illinois University. She studied Jazz piano with Laura Hoffman at the Bloom School of jazz and is a self taught guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. Elisabeth violin has been a passport. She has been performing traditional Eastern European music with the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble. The ensemble has performed at such venues as The Hothouse, Grant Park’s Dancing Under the Stars concert series, the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto, Canada, WTTW’s Center Stage performance series and last year completed a European tour performing at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and featured at the Yiddish folk festival held in Weimar, Germany. She also worked as a violinist with Chicago Folks Operetta, a company that brings Yiddish Opera back to the stage. She has soloed with many singer songwriters including her own project Lizzy and the Zoetropes, as well as her group Solaranja, Brazilian Choro and a stint of Argentinian Tango in Oakland California. She also has live records Miles Davis Birth if the Cool with Origin of Animal as well as collaborated as a composer with the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Other interests Middle Eastern ensembles include the University of Chicago Middle Eastern Ensemble, Trio Ela, a group composed of harp, sandouri and violin that performs many traditional Greek musical styles as well as a member of Mosiac, a classical arabic music ensemble of violin, clarinet, turkish canun, and percussion that performs middle eastern traditional folk musics from such cultures as Turkey, Armenia, Morroco, and Persia. These groups have performed in cultural outreach programs such as Urban Gateways, performing assemblies for Chicago public schools to promote cultural awareness and education to children through music and the arts. Elisabeth is the proprietor of the music studio, Mynah Music. Private lessons with Elisabeth are versatile given her love and performance of world, jazz and classical repertoire and so tailors lessons to the needs and interests of each individual. Elisabeth is interested not only in teaching how to play one particular instrument. She is also equally interested in guiding her students with a wholistic approach that considers finding genuine interests and finding ones own unique abilities to lead ultimately to an individual, one of a kind musical voice. Miss Johnson currently teaches throughout the Chicago area working with children and their parents in private studio lessons as well as a variety of other learning environments including the public school classroom, group classes, the home, and workshops.