Our faculty are truly unique: They're experts in specialized fields who also know how to work joyfully with young people at every stage of development and skill.
SHAK is led by a collaborative team of core teachers and administrative specialists.
In 2005, Shulamit Kleinerman launched the series of children's exploratory workshops that would later become Seattle Historical Arts for Kids. She continues to direct SHAK's operations and, in collaboration with an expanding community of artist coaches, to teach in most of the programs. Her work with SHAK was nationally honored in 2015 with Early Music America's Laurette Goldberg Award for educational outreach. A former preschool teacher, Shula maintains a private violin teaching studio in North Seattle. As a performer, Shula plays the medieval vielle and renaissance and baroque violin, specializing in the early "off-shoulder" playing position. She was a founding member of the Elizabethan quartet Plaine & Easie, which won the 2009 North American EMA competition in medieval and renaissance music.
Miyo Aoki is the creator of Recorder from the Ground Up, a unique teaching method forthcoming from SHAK that combines kid-optimized by-ear learning tools with time-tested musical hits from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. She is a member of the Farallon Recorder Quartet and holds undergraduate degrees in early music performance and mathematics from Indiana University and an Artist Diploma from the University of the Arts in Bremen. In addition to private lessons, Miyo teaches at historical-performance workshops all over the US and teaches recorder for both in-school and afterschool programs in elementary schools in Bloomington, Indiana. Miyo's online recorder classes at SHAK were among our most popular offerings in 2020-2022, with several students going on to study recorder ever since.
Nick Chrisman has been involved with SHAK for almost his whole life, first as a student ('21) and now as an alumnus coach and performer. He began playing the cello at the age of four. In spring 2025 Nick graduated from Lawrence University (appleton WI) with a dual degree in cello performance and classics; he studied with Kivie Cahn-Lipman. Nick took part in Amherst Early Music’s Baroque Academy for Instrumentalists in 2024 and 2025, and in the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute in 2025. With SHAK Nick has taught both children and teens, serving as a teacher in exploratory camps, an instructor in viola da gamba, and a coach in our Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque chamber ensembles for instruments and voices. In 2025-26 he'll also be teaching recorder for SHAK and introducing the viol and baroque cello in schools and music studios throughout Seattle.
Carmen Mettler has been involved in theatre staging and management for more than two decades, working in regional, touring and educational outreach contexts. Carmen has been responsible for large scale musical theatre productions, small community outreach performances and touring productions across the U.S. and Western Canada. For many years she was the Production Stage Manager for Puget Sound Revels. Carmen enjoys working with performing children and their families, helping to navigate to endless variables of a life onstage. She has managed or directed every SHAK staged show since 2013. She was also a SHAK parent from 2011 through 2019 while her kid grew up in both the musical and theatrical programs.
Marina Sanchez is a SHAK alum ('21) and recent graduate of Wheaton College, where she earned her degree in Anthropology with minors in Sociology and Peace & Social Justice. Her early involvement with SHAK — especially through performances and community work — played a key role in the development of her creative voice and commitment to social change. Now returning in an administrative role as Assistant Project Manager, Marina is excited to support the SHAK team behind the scenes and continue giving back to the program that helped shape who she is today.
Bill McJohn studied early harps with Cheryl Ann Fulton and medieval music with Margriet Tindemans. He is co-director of the chant ensemble Peregrine, the medieval ensemble Contrafacta, and the Seattle Continuo Ensemble, and performs with the Angelorum Harp Choir and the Medieval Women’s Choir. Bill has played and sung for many school outreach projects and accompanied some of the SHAK singers at Camlann Medieval Village, and is a regular guest coach/performer with Early Music Youth Academy.
Eleanor Legault has studied historical performance for graduate degrees at The Juilliard School, the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and she holds a dual bachelor’s degree in violin performance and English literature from Lawrence University. She is co-founder of the ensemble Duo Moda, whose album of unpublished duets from the early 18th century is scheduled for release in 2025. Eleanor has performed with groups including The English Concert and Les Arts Florissants, and she made her directorial and soloist debut in 2025 curating an all-baroque program with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra. At SHAK, Eleanor coaches teen string players in Baroque style. She writes, “Every project I’ve been fortunate to be a part of with SHAK has brought me so much joy to see what the students have been able to accomplish. It is a privilege to see students grow and take ownership of musical gestures and phrasing with the new tools to which they are exposed through SHAK’s offerings.”
Cecil Longino pursued studies in Taekwondo in his youth, followed by a Bachelor of Arts in history and Elizabethan stagecraft and then by certification as an instructor in many forms of classical fencing through the Martinez Academy of Arms in New York. Eager to explore the transmission of the early Western martial arts tradition, Cecil founded the Academia della Spada in 1998 and teaches adults at its permanent school, the Salle Saint-George in Seattle. At SHAK, Cecil has served as a regular guest fencing teacher in countless of our exploratory day camps over two decades and has taught weekly SHAK fencing classes since 2022. He also choreographed the duel scene in our productions of Handel's Alcina and the fencing-school pageant in The Life and Times of Queen Christina.
John Lenti specializes in music of the seventeenth century and has made basso continuo improvisation on lute, theorbo, and baroque guitar the cornerstone of a career that encompasses chamber music, recitals, and work for opera companies and orchestras both modern and baroque. When John’s not on the road or performing or coaching locally he’s mostly a stay-at-home dad. With SHAK John has performed in lots of our theatrical productions and accompanied and coached in our Early Music Youth Academy and in our Baroque Strings Festival and New Year's Baroque workshops.