Silicon Valley Institute of Music
Private Cello Instruction in Mountain View, California
What Happens Once You Know How to Practice
As cellists, we just can't afford to be heard playing out of tune. Or with unstable rhythm. Or without nuanced vibrato. Phrasing, articulation, and tone production are a constant negotiation with physics, whose unforgiving laws punish us immediately when we fail to comply. On top of that, every note has five finger choices and two possible bow directions. When they're strung together, we face an exponential number of possibilities, with each note just waiting for us to mess something up. Using over fifty guiding principles, we must systematically identify the most seamless finger and bow patterns for any piece that make cello playing more tractable, or else.
Even once those are solved, we still have to be able to move between notes fluently. Each passage must be drilled, evaluated, and adjusted repeatedly for accuracy and consistency. Such discipline grants us at first only the ability to play, but not yet the ability to express. In order to do that, we must also consider related history, tradition, and style to respect the composer's intentions, while leaving room for informed freedom of interpretation. Only then may we start to call the deliberate results of our efforts, music.
But what is all this careful attention to detail for, if not only to share the finished product with an audience? It is the impression that both practicing and performing music leave behind; impressions we form and reflect upon today, so we may become people who create with greater understanding tomorrow.
The Private Studio of Mr. Jeffrey Li, Cellist
MM – The Juilliard School
BM, BS – Northwestern University
Cellist Jeffrey Li began studying music at age four on the piano before switching to cello at age nine. A California native, Li made his soloist debut at 13 with the Palisades Symphony Orchestra playing the Dvořák Cello Concerto, and by 15, had toured Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme and Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 with numerous orchestras throughout the greater Los Angeles area.
Li completed his Bachelor of Music degree at Northwestern University, where in 2011 he was the winner of the Concerto and Aria Competition and Samuel and Elinor Thaviu Endowed Strings Competition. In 2012, he performed Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto in E Minor under the baton of Maestro Victor Yampolsky with the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra. Li has since given concerts at venues including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center.
Li also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Northwestern and relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area to begin an early career in software development. Starting at Microsoft, he worked on Office for iPad, then at Google, the Chrome web browser. While at Google, Li simultaneously enrolled at The Juilliard School, traveling weekly to New York City to pursue his Master of Music degree. The commute was featured in the Aspen Times in the summer of 2018 while he was attending the Aspen Music Festival and School. Presently, Li serves as Executive Director of Young Artists Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to cultivate the next generation of responsible stewards of classical music.
As an educator, many of Li's cello students have been past competition prizewinners and former principal players of several bay area youth orchestras. Li has also been a frequent guest lecturer at The Juilliard School's precollege division, speaking on topics ranging from the shared mechanics of music and mathematics to time management. In 2019, he designed and taught an industry-focused college course in fundamentals of C++ programming at California State University, Fullerton. Several of his past students and mentees have since accepted full-time and internship positions at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
Today, Li can be heard in concert in the United States and China. Li's most influential teachers were Hans Jørgen Jensen and Richard Aaron, and masterclass studies with Lynn Harrell. His primary instrument is a c.1790 English cello, and bows by Georges-Léon Lamy and Émile Auguste Ouchard.
Studio Policy
Private lessons impart the necessary skills, habits, and foundations that continue to serve students long after they move on from from SVIM.
Weekly Instruction
Students age 10 and older are scheduled for 60-minute or longer lessons. Shorter lesson durations of 45 minutes may be arranged for students up to age 9 for up to 6 months.
Schedules may be periodically adjusted to accommodate faculty performance tours and other professional engagements. Planned absences, family travel, and major scheduling conflicts should be communicated as early as possible.
Additional instruction time or increased lesson frequency may be arranged for students pursuing more intensive study, especially to prepare for of upcoming auditions, competitions, and performances, or for guidance on materials external to prescribed coursework.
Daily Practice
Practice is retention. Students who maintain consistent habits and active effort to incorporate concepts from prior lessons are those who progress the most.
Tuition & Billing
Tuition is billed monthly and is due at the beginning of each month, prior to the start of the first scheduled lesson of the month.
The Studio reserves the right to adjust tuition rates periodically. Students/parents will be notified in advance of any tuition changes.
Cancellation & Rescheduling
Weekly lesson schedules are planned monthly in advance of each month. Rescheduling a lesson may be done with a minimum of 24 hours' notice and must be for the same week. The Studio will make reasonable efforts to accommodate advance rescheduling requests, but cannot guarantee availability. Lessons that cannot be rescheduled within the same week, or for which less than 24 hours' notice is given, are forfeited. Late arrivals or lessons canceled by the parent or student are not refunded or credited.
Frequent cancellations, extended gaps in instruction, or inconsistent attendance may result in termination of enrollment.
Communication
Students/parents are expected to maintain timely and professional communication regarding scheduling and attendance. The Studio reserves the right to discontinue instruction or release reserved lesson times in cases of repeated scheduling instability, nonpayment, prolonged inactivity, or ongoing failure to comply with Studio policies.
Enrollment Process & Assessment
New students schedule an assessment prior to joining the Studio to demonstrate preparation for long-term study. An assessment should be completed in up to 45 minutes, by which time an admissions decision is made.
Students with 6 months or longer of prior instructions should prepare:
1. An excerpt of a prepared work from a method book, concerto, sonata, or etude.
2. A scale in any key of as many octaves as comfortable.
New beginners (under 6 months of training) instead undergo sample first-lesson instruction, during which they only need to be able to demonstrate ability to follow instruction and adapt in real time.
New beginner students should arrive with a cello already acquired. Shop recommendations for beginners are provided upon scheduling an appointment. An assessment fee of $129 applies and is independent of tuition rates.
45 min
129 US dollars