Natasha Close - Muscial Director and Owner of MINPAA

​Natasha Close is the Owner and Musical Director at Melbourne Performing Arts & Peninsula Performing Arts, who brings over 30 years of International and local teaching experience.

She graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and has Orff and Kodály certifications from New York and Vancouver, amongst many other musical qualifications.
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She is also the proud mother of 4 beautiful children and one grandson.

Jesús Iglesias - Head of Piano and Music, Choral and Ensemble conductor

Jesus Iglesias is our wonderful Music Professor, Choral and Ensemble conductor and Multi-Instrumentalist. He is Head of Piano, and teaches students of all levels, ages and disciplines including Drums, Guitar, Piano, and Vocals. Jesus teaches a broad range of skills that range from basic scales to classical Ameb repertoire, and also teaches contemporary arrangements, by successfully teaching students to read music.
​Jesus has an incredible command of all our specialist Minpaa groups including conducting our Childrens Choir, Instrumental ensembles, and also providing high level communication with our youngest students, to adults of all ages and needs.

Russell Stringer - Guitar, Ukulele and Piano Teacher

Russell Stringer is our much loved guitar, bass, ukulele and piano teacher.

He is one of our longest standing members of the academy and is in high demand by many of our students

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​Katy Molina - Strings and Vocal Teacher

Katy is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist with a passionate and professional approach to teaching students of all ages.
Her specialisations are piano, cello, violin and vocals.
She looks forward to taking your children on an incredible musical journey in the upcoming months and years.

Jordan Moore is our wonderful woodwind specialist, classically trained on the Clarinet. She also plays in a gypsy rock band. She has a Diploma of Music and is also studying a Bachelor of Music at Melbourne Polytechnic.

She loves music and believes living what you love is the most important thing.

Layton Otene is a talented multi instrumentalist, composer, performer and recording artist originally from Taranaki, Aotearoa (NZ). Following his mother and sister, he started playing piano at the age of seven. For the next 18 years he would go on to take up, drums, guitar, bass, vocals, the study of musical theory, performance and many other aspects of music such as teaching, recording, social media management, venue booking, networking and so on. As you can see Layton has dedicated the larger part of his life to playing, performing and teaching music and he now very much looks forward to inspiring a new generation of musicians like his teachers did for him

His specialisations are: guitar, piano, drums and ensemble teaching