Meet Our Staff
Anahita Khorsandi
CEO
Anahita Khorsandi is a pianist living in DC area. She started playing piano at age 6 with Mr. Pardis, who was one of the best teachers at the time. After that she started taking lessons from Mojgan Salehi who was also one of the best teachers. She has also studied piano in a conservatory of Tehran for several years. She moved to the USA at age 18 and started to teach piano to kids. After a while, she decided to study marketing to open her own business. She has studied marketing in University of Massachusetts. As a result of her life-long study of both music and marketing, Anahita Khorsandi founded the Ava Music School based on the philosophy that developing emotional depth, artistic maturity and a genuine love of music is the essence of musical study. Ava Music school is founded in 2017 by Anahita Khorsandi, who serves as a director.
Niloufar Rahmanzadeh
Manager/Piano Instructor (Group Lessons)
Niloofar has always been passionate about art and started her journey by practicing piano with Amirreza Kardar Tehran , a great piano teacher who leaves in Mashhad, Iran. He taught her the basics and built the foundation of her piano journey. Then three years ago, She started taking lessons from Anahita Khorsandi ,who is the founder of Ava Music School.
Now, She is proud to level up the challenge by starting her new role as a piano teacher at Ava Music School.
Farhad Tehrani
Piano Instructor
Farhad Tehrani graduated from Tehran Conservatory of Music with piano as his specialised instrument. He also has a master degree in Liberal Arts from Georgetown University where he concentrated on the significant role of music on children’s cognitive performances. He is a versatile piano teacher who can successfully teach several piano playing genres. Adept at teaching students to read music, and providing tailored piano lessons to students of all ages and abilities.
Mr Tehrani never takes for granted the prominent role of parents in shaping their children’s learning processes and strongly encourage them to familiarise themselves with musical education in order to better accompany their children on their musical journey. As a music teacher, it is his belief that all students, regardless of socio-economic status, physical or intellectual ability, should be offered the opportunity to discover and explore their innate potential as musicians, and to increase these natural capacities through formal music instruction.
Dunja Novcic
Piano Instructor
Dunja Novcic was born in Novi Sad, Serbia, where she attended Elementary and secondary High Music School. While still in High School, she has performed at the various master classes of famous pianists, such as Aleksandar Serdar, Konstantin Bogino, Gulzin
Onay, Svetlana Bogino, and Vladimir Ogarkov. She began her Academic studies in 2005 in Serbia and continued them in the USA as a winner of the Eastern Europe Linkage Institute
Scholarship and Herbert and Nicole Wertheim School of Music Scholarship at the Florida International University. During her undergraduate studies, she was nominated as a member of
the National Social Student Association at Florida International University and was a member of the Golden Key Honors Society. Her students won many prizes at the State competitions and Festivals in the country and abroad. Today, they are enrolled in one of the most prestigious Art Academies. She currently joined us at Ava Music School as piano Instructor.
Europe (Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary). Since 2015, she has been dedicated to
private teaching, accompanying, and performing in Aventura, Florida.
In 2021 Dunja finished her Master's studies at the Florida International University in piano
performance, under the full Scholarship of Herbert and Nicole Wertheim fund of the FIU School
of Music in the studio of world-renowned pianist, Kemal Gekic.
Pendar Kordnavahsi
Piano Technique Group Lessons
Pendar Kordnavahsi was born in August of 1989 in Tehran, Iran. He started to learn keyboard at age 5 and then the Flamenco style of guitar performance at 13. Once he turned 17, he solely focused on the Classical piano studies and thus took lessons from the best Iranian and Russian teachers. He became a private instructor at 18 and began his solo concerts as well as ensemble performances, activities that he has been doing ever since.
Due to the systematic religious persecution of the Bahais in Iran, imposed by the government, he moved to America with his family in 2013. Since then, he has been a private piano instructor in Northern Virginia and an active performer in DC, Virginia, and Chicago. He dedicated specific performances to honor his American citizenship in 2019. Pendar got his bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from George Mason University and is currently working on his first solo piano album.
Dr. Nikan Milani
Piano Instructor
Nikan Milani is an accomplished pianist, composer, conductor, and music instructor. He has studied in London and the United States. His teachers include Haynush Makarian and Eda Shlym. He has performed US piano recitals in Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, Boston, and in Cambridge at Harvard University. Nikan Milan studied Piano and Composition at The Longy School of Music. When not composing, performing, or teaching, Nikan conducts a choir. Being extremely well-rounded enables Nikan to be a phenomenal music instructor.
Antonio Espinal
Piano & Vocal Instructor
Antonio is an Orchestral Conductor (BA, National Conservatory of Music, MFA, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA), Choral conductor (MFA, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA) and a Pianist (BA with Honors, UNAM, Mexico). He made his Opera debut conducting ‘La Traviata”, in Mexico City at age 24. Prior to that, he was a Piano Faculty at the Mexico’s National Conservatory of Music. He is currently a Candidate of a DMA in orchestral conducting at the Benjamin T. Rome School of music, at the Catholic University of America.
He had a personal invitation for an apprenticeship with Maestro Essa-Pekka Salonen with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he recently joined Ava Music School in Vienna, Virginia.
Payam Rohani
Guitar Instructor
Payam has started playing guitar when he was only 10 year old. He has 25 year of teaching experience in classical and pop guitar. He has been recording 2 albums in the past few years. He also had few concerts in different countries. He studied music in university of Tehran in Iran and received his bachelors in music industry.
Arman Nasrinpay
Violin & Viola
Arman Nasrinpay's passion for music quickly brought him into the spotlight as one of classical music’s upcoming young stars. Among his accolades, he was the recipient of top prizes at the prestigious Washington Performing Arts Society’s Feder Competition and has played for famous notable figures such as US Senator Timothy Kaine as early as the age of 13. He has performed at world class venues, including the Kennedy Center, Strathmore Hall, and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall alongside such violinists as Joshua Bell, Augustin Hadelich, Sarah Chang, and Rachel Barton Pine. He has also been heard on nationally syndicated radio stations such as Chicago's classical music station, WFMT. Mr Nasrinpay holds a Master of Music degree from the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. An avid orchestral player, he has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony, the Chautauqua Symphony, the Dayton Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony. He is a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the American String Teachers Association. His teaching philosophy centers around the fact that we are all people before musicians, so tailing a multi-facets education to reflect their individuality and musical level is paramount.
