With a Doctor of Musical Arts from Yale University, pianist James Lent is on the faculty of UCLA and AMDA and loves working on classical, popular, and musical theatre music.

James is the best and will teach you techniques you have never heard of that will really change how you view voice lessons and enhance both your singing and speaking voice! I always have a great time in lessons and leave better! He is also fun and welcoming!

Great teacher and Great experience!
My daughter has had 3 piano lessons with Dr. Lent. It is always a great experience and very inspiring, so much to learn. 100 minutes passed quickly! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity. I can already the a change in how she is expressing herself, and playing with more ease and polish!

Experienced and encouraging teacher!
I learned a few pieces from Faber, Beyer, and Thompson. Good mix, good amount of homework, I feel I am Learning & growing! James has a good ear while I was playing and would be able to point out where I made an error quickly. He is also good at setting goals for me that I can achieve between lessons! He is well organized and fun!

Each week of practice brings new awareness to how I play. I’m noticing less tension, more ease, and a lighter touch. Still need to get my left hand to anticipate the bass clef better, but I’m making progress.

Even though it is so challenging, with careful study, Bach is helping me understand the keyboard, my hands, music, and how to make all three work together. It’s amazing how much music can happen between B7 and E. Bach combined with Grieg are also revealing the magic of dynamics and how a lighter touch yields more lyrical results. James’s method is fantastic! Thank you James!

Wonderful teacher for my daughter's piano lessons!
James is patient and gives tremendous guidance for my daughter who is learning piano. The distance learning sessions are actually very doable as I was curious to know how it would work. I highly recommend James as a piano instructor for all levels and ages! Christime- 56 lessons

I’ve been taking lessons from James for almost 2 years. I first chose James not only because of his incredible education, DMA from Yale, multiple national competition winnings, and accomplished career, but most importantly he is versatile in all music genre, classical, jazz, pop, musical theater...etc. James is fun and friendly. He is very good at pointing out problems, offering solutions to solve the problems and working with me patiently until I get it. He is also observant and sensitive to my personality and always handpicks music pieces that I really enjoy playing. Musically, he offers suggestions but at the same time allows me to develop my own style. He is an impressive pianist. I am always fascinated to hear him play especially when he is being creative and improvising! The lessons are always engaging and inspiring. An hour always goes by so fast when it’s fun. Occasionally, I saw him teaching other students before starting my lesson and found him really flexible and adaptive to different students personalities and needs, a classic trait of an effective competent teacher. Thinking back to the first lesson I took with James, I realized how much I’ve learned and improved in the past 2 years. I am very happy to have found him to guide me on a hobby I am passionate about. I highly recommend him as a piano teacher for students of all levels, all ages and all genres.