Faculty: Piano & Keyboards

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 40+ 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.

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.

PIANO (Classical) Ivey Perkins, M.Mus.

IVEY PERKINS, B.Mus., M.Mus., Classical Pianist has been an instructor at OMS since the late 1990s.  She is an Alumnus and was an instructor of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She is teaching in Prince George's County Public Schools.  She attended Oberlin Conservatory (studying with Gail McDonald and Frances Walker), and Howard University (studying with Dr. Raymond Jackson) where she graduated her Bachelor of Music (cum laude) and Master of Music degrees in piano performance. She has taught also at Howard University.  Her students have been accepted to such schools as the University of Michigan, Howard University, and Berklee School of Music.

Ms. Perkins has won many awards from the Music Teachers Associations of  Prince George’s, the Maryland State, and Washington, as well as the Friday Morning Music Club and the National Guild of Piano Teachers.  Her solo appearances and recitals include the Arts Club of Washington, the Embassy of France, and performances with the Prince George’s Philharmonic and Washington Symphony Orchestra. She is the pianist for the Ottley Music School Piano Ensemble.  Besides teaching, Ms. Perkins serves as the Minister of Music at Grace Memorial AME Zion Church in Lorton, Virginia, and keeps a private studio in Fort Washington, Maryland. Photos by Nevilla E. Ottley.

PIANO (Jazz)

CLIFTON BROCKINGTON, B.Mus., Jazz Pianist and Trumpeter received a Bachelors of Music from Howard University with a concentration in jazz. He has recorded with gospel artists such as Donnie McClurkin, Fred Hammond, Andre Crouch, Richard Smallwood, and Israel with Mo’ Horns. In addition to performing in over 30 cities in the United States, the native Washingtonian has traveled to the Japan, London, St. Croix, and recently to the Republic of Georgia playing jazz, R&B, and gospel music.

Mr. Brockington joined the faculty of Ottley Music School in the winter of 2004-2005 as a piano and jazz piano teacher, as well as trumpet. In the fall of 2006 he re-established the OMS Jazz Ensemble that that been initially formed by Tom Newman in 2001. As a singer/songwriter, Clifton has written several compositions: “Life’s Longings” and “Journey for Strathmore’s own City Dance”, and as Music Director co-wrote music to the play Roll On! Primarily known as a trumpeter, Clifton has given solo piano performance at the Kennedy Center. For the past two years, he has spent time at the piano trying to master Latin music with local groups such as: Milagro, La Leyenda and Joe Falero and the D.C. Latin Jazz All-Star. In addition to completing his first CD featuring him as a solo artist, Clifton is working to a jazz adaptation of Peter and the Wolf. One album he was featured on as a trumpet received rave reviews from the Washington Post, where Mike Joyce noted that “trumpeter Clifton Brockington displays a knack for recalling Miles Davis's soulful lyricism on "Ah Jua," "Sunlight Underwater" and other tracks.”

PIANO (Classical and Gospel), ORGAN (Classical)

ANWAR GABRIEL MYRON OTTLEY, M. Mus., Pianist, Organist is a product of the Ottley Music School where he took piano lessons with his aunt, Nevilla Ottley since he was in elementary school. In his senior year of high school, after conducting successfully the Takoma Academy Gospel Choir (a talent he inherited from his father, Dr. Myron Ottley), he was transferred as a scholarship student for his senior year to Pine Forge Academy where he studied piano under Toni Hall and conducting with Jason Ferdinand. He was a four-year scholarship student at Columbia Union College, where for the first two years he focused on Music Education, then switched to organ performance, graduating in May 2007. He also sang with the world-traveled Pro Musica of CUC under Dr. James Bingham. In the meantime, for four years, he conducted the 35-voice Black Student Union Chorale in command performances of music of Black Composers from the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic to the present day, a cappella or with symphony orchestra and/or with band.

He also serves as assistant conductor and accompanist to the world-traveled MetroSingers of Metropolitan Seventh-day Adventist Church (Kenya, Holland, England and around the USA) which besides 3 CDs and a DVD have recorded a concert with the satellite station, 3ABN (3 Angels Broadcast Network). Mr. Ottley is working on his Masters of Miusic at Andrews University in Michigan, and will graduate in May 2009. Photo by Nevilla E. Ottley (2005).

PIANO (Jazz, Gospel, Classical)

DAVID GRIFFITHS has joined the faculty of the Ottley Music School at the beginning of 2009.  OMS is proud that Mr. Griffiths has returned to the OMS after being a student over 2 decades ago.

Naoko Maeda, B.Mus. (Classical and Classic Jazz)