Music Department
(in partnership with Education Through Music – Los Angeles)

Learn more information about Education Through Music - Los Angeles.

Chris Thomas-K/1 Music
Chris has always been in love with music! He attended the University of Oregon, earning a B.A. in Music Composition and Political Science. He also earned a graduate degree in Scoring for Motion Pictures from the University of Southern California. In addition to having taught college level courses at West LA College, Chris is a busy film composer. His experience includes ABC's hit show LOST, CSI: NY, Sony Picture's Dragon Wars, and orchestrating for the 2008 Oscar shortlisted film, Captain Abu Raed. In 2007, Chris became the youngest nominee for Best Orchestrator in the Academy of Film and TV Music awards in Hollywood. Recently, Chris composed the music for the 2009 Academy Award contender, Woman Rebel. He is excited about his third year teaching at Saint Sebastian School.

Christina Eng – Violin Teacher (Grades 2-4)
Christina Eng has received a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a violinist and educator originally from the New York area. Christina currently performs and teaches violin and viola at various music schools in the Los Angeles area. During her time in Boston, Christina worked at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. She also lived in Hanoi, Vietnam for two years where she taught English to university students. Christina has taught violin at Saint Sebastian School for four years and enjoys sharing her passion for music and violin with the students of Saint Sebastian School.

Lindsey Strand-Polyak- Violin (Grades 2-4)
Lindsey Strand-Polyak has been sharing her love of music with students of all ages for over a decade, teaching violin in elementary schools throughout Los Angeles and maintaining her own private violin studio. She is currently finishing her graduate work at UCLA, where she is a PhD Candidate in Musicology. Additionally, Lindsey is also working on her MM in Violin Performance at UCLA. As a performer, Ms. Strand-Polyak is active playing in film and television recording sessions, local symphony orchestras, new music ensembles, and the occasional rock band. She has appeared as a soloist and in recital throughout North America and Europe. She has worked with are John Williams, Antonio Lysy, Anne Akiko Meyers, Peter Yates, David Newman, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and Rise Against.

Amanda Johnson - 5th-8th Grade Guitar
Amanda Johnson is a teaching, gigging and touring musician that travels all over Southern California for her “work”-which is ALWAYS play! For over 12 years, she has been teaching guitar, bass, flute, piano and the basics of playing and maintaining instruments to students of all ages. Her goal for her students is not that they become “guitarists”, but that they become well-rounded musicians. Amanda graduated from Citrus College (Glendora, CA). Her experiences there allowed her to tour internationally with jazz and make connections that took her on U.S. tours with an original rock band. When she's not teaching guitar, Preschool, and rock band classes through various programs (including ETM-LA), she can be seen gigging all over Southern California with many different cover groups, original bands, and musical theater companies. Amanda has had the honor of teaching Guitar/Music class for 5th-8th grade at St. Sebastian for three years.

John Storie- 5th - 8th Grade Guitar and ETM-LA Program Director
John Storie graduated in 2006 from the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music with a Bachelor's Degree in Studio/Jazz Guitar Performance. Since graduating in 2006, John has toured extensively with jazz artists Renee Olstead, Al Jarreau, Sara Gazarek, as well as performing with artists such as Steve Miller, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Chicago. His guitar trio, New West, has performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival, Britt Festival, Oregon Shakepseare Festival, Aichi World Expo (Nagoya, Japan), University of Hiroshima, and the Berlin Amerikafest. John also has worked in the TV/film industries as a session guitarist for shows on NBC and the Bravo! networks. John is a native Oregonian and enjoys fly fishing and collecting vintage model trains in his spare time. He is thrilled to be sharing his love of music with the Saint Sebastian School community.