As of 2025, I decided to embark on this project of donation-based education. Inspired by Master Confucius, who never refused a student and accepted any payment from a bundle of dried meat and up.
Previously the investment for studying with me was about €130–€160 for a full month of lessons. In this country, individual music lessons vary from €35–€50 per lesson in general. Nonetheless, it has always been my ideal to offer lessons at affordable rates based on my beliefs.
Students can now partake in these lessons regardless of their financial situation; they are not obliged to give a specific amount, or any at all if they are not able to. This means the availability and continuity of these lessons also depends on accepting external support from sponsors who wish to contribute.
Your support directly helps sponsor students who are eager to learn but may not be able to afford regular lessons. At the same time, your contribution sustains my ability to continue offering these lessons as my livelihood. The donations go entirely to ensuring high-quality education for my students.
My students come from all over, but the vast majority come from The Netherlands, The United States of America, and Costa Rica, my main areas of operations in the past.
I offer courses that are individual, tailored to the student's needs, high quality, holistic, relevant, and personal. Arts education must be personal. These courses require a fair amount of work and effort on the part of the student, but are doable in conjunction with other training.
It's important to remember: music is an art of the ear! Not an art of the fingers nor of any other body part. My courses aim to develop the mind's ear, that inner hearing which allows the musician to truly understand and communicate through music.
As musicians, performers, and teachers, it is our duty to understand what a piece is about in order to communicate it effectively to the audience. Precisely because of this, since we are dealing with some of the greatest minds in the history of humanity, it is also our duty to build ourselves through serious education. We have great responsibility in our hands… The great masters of the past depend on us.
My lessons generally include discussions on musical material to be worked on, including ear training, dictations, lectures, debates, and more. I also provide important historical context and include topics in fields that support the overall education of the student, Ethics, Literature, Art, and poetry. I entice all my students to learn poetry by memory, as I have found it to be an extremely important educational practice. All my lessons end with a joint listening session of a world-class recording of a masterpiece, which we also discuss together.
For sponsors wishing to contribute to the education project:
Coming soon. In the meantime, you may contact me for details via the Request Info button at the top of this page.
I am in the process of setting up a foundation that will help me better manage the donations received and provide transparency and accountability for everyone who supports this project. At the moment, I must keep track of and include VAT tax on all donations, as they count as taxable income for my company. Donations to this project are also not tax deductible for supporters yet.
There is a clear difference made in the invoices issued between normal business transactions for courses outside the donation-based project and all voluntary contributions from students and supporters that go exclusively towards the donation-based music education project.