Keyboard Department Chair, Piano and Organ

Mrs. Nevilla E. Ottley-Adjahoe, M.Mus.

Nevilla E. Ottley-Adjahoe has been teaching piano since she was a teenager back in the 1960s, when some students were in elementary school and others were in college. Since then she has gone on to get her own Music Education Bachelor's degree with in piano as her main instrument, and a Master of Arts with organ as her main instrument, and a Master of Music degree in conducting. Her earliest students are now all over the world in careers from teaching to law to medicine, engineering, ministry and various other careers including music performance. Her piano students have always rated very high in both the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and of the National Guild of Piano Teachers annual examinations and auditions.

Over the past 51 years, her piano, organ and voice students have taken (and are still taking) places of responsibility in the music world and other fields internationally. Most of them have gone on to colleges and universities around the world as students and professors, such as Johns Hopkins University, Andrews University, Loma Linda University, Western Michigan University, University of Maryland, Oakwood College, Duke University, Howard University, Berkelee School of Music, Morgan State University, Bethune Cookman College, Mannes College, Princeton, Northern Caribbean University, University of the Southern Caribbean, Bowie State University and others.

Mrs. Ottley-Adjahoe makes sure her students learn the techniques, literature, ear-training and theory, and they participate in monthly recitals. Those who are more advanced are invited to perform in the quarterly concerts presented by Ottley Music School, and they also are given opportunity to serve in church services of various Christian denominations. Many of Mrs. Ottley's students stay under the care of the Ottley Music School till they graduate from high school and move away to college. Then they or their chldren or parents later return to study.

She encourages all parents to enroll their children in a music lesson wherever you are in the world, because it is music lessons, especially piano, that is one of the large factors in enhancing the development of children's brains, giving them more facility in achieving top grades in the subjects that they study. It is a proven fact that those who study music attain at least 40% higher scores on standardized tests in all subjects.

Robert Statham

B.Mus., M.Mus. candidate, piano performance 

Since the fall of 2010, Mr. Statham has brought to Ottley Music School a caring, experienced, patient teacher ready to fill his student's needs.

He took private lessons at Peabody Institute with Enrique Graf in the 1980s and graduated with a B.A . in music performance from Hampton University in 1989.  He has done graduate studies for Masters of Music and Performance from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is teacher and a concert pianist, teaching for over 2 decades, also working with youth choirs, a coached high school students for auditions.

He has performed in several venues in the greater Washington, D.C. area, from Hagerstown, MD through Virginia with the McLean  Symphony and the Reston Chamber Orchestra and in Laurel, MD, performing several concerti  by Bach, Rachmaninoff, Gottschalk, Beethoven, as well as works for solo piano, by African American classical composers, the traditional masters  and his own works.

Presently he is the Director of Music and Organist at the St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Centerville, VA, and had served in the same capacity at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in  Purcellville, VA the 5 years before that. Ottley Music School is glad to have Mr. Statham as one of our qualified teachers.

Naoko Maeda, M.Mus., Piano

PIANO (Classical)

Anton Martinez, B.A.

ANTON MARTINEZ, B.A., came to the Ottley Music School in August, 2000, a wonderful, experienced, young piano performer, having had just a little experience teaching, but with a lot of piano performance training and experience, and with a strong desire to learn how to teach. Over the years he has been with the OMS, he has not only taken well to his teacher training and experience, but also has grown into a fine teacher, as can be attested by the results of his students many of whom test with high marks in the annual National Guild of Piano Teachers auditions.

Mr. Martinez began studying piano as a child with Emilio del Rosario at the North Shore Music School in Illinois. He then studied for 4 years under Theodore Edel at the University of Illinois in Chicago, then went to study with Madame Larisa Dedova at the Moscow State Conservatory for two years, then was again her student at the University of Maryland. He has done his 4 years as a piano student at the U.Md., and switched to Pre-law there.  From 1991-1996, Mr. Martinez won the 1st prize at the annual Judson College Piano Competition for 6 consecutive years. He constantly brings a fresh, youthful yet serious enthusiasm to the OMS and to his students, and his students score high on the National Guild auditions.

He is presently also on a SABBATICAL FROM OTTLEY MUSIC SCHOOL.  He assists during the summer months with piano and music theory.