Sheila Hekmat Performing Arts Center's teaching philosophy is to stimulate learning by positive encouragement.  We accomplish this by nurturing each student's individual unique ability.  Our main goal is to instill a passion and love for learning music.  We provide the same encouragement and devotion in the students whether they are learning piano as a hobby or they wish to pursue a career in music.

Sheila's studio has a unique method of nurturing and cultivating the innate talent of each student. We help each student bring out their own natural musical expression by providing them with an encouraging and motivating atmosphere. We tailor each lesson to the individual needs of the student.Our mission is to allow students to discover, develop and express themselves through music, mainly through trust and belief in their abilities.

Our studio teaches classical and popular music, performance, theory, technique, sight-reading, ear-training, composition, and harmonizing.  Composing music has always been our passion and we encourage many of our students to develop the skills of  composing and recording using piano and computer media.  Several of our students have produced their own original compositions on CDs. 

Our tremendous skill in teaching piano performance and composition has resulted in many of our students winning high honors and first place awards in many national and state music competitions such as the United States Open Music Competition, Young Musicians Foundation, Cypress College Piano Competition, National Guild Composition, Composers Today, and MTAC Panel Winner.  Many of our students have received their high school diploma in Music and have been featured in the National Piano Guild Magazine.

The founder, Sheila Hekmat, is a graduate of CSU Northridge, Department of Music.  In 1985, she was awarded a music scholarship from CSUN.  She has extended her studies in music by receiving training with the Orff-Schulwerk Method at UCLA, which is a specialized teaching method geared towards children.  She has also been trained in the Robert Pace and Kodaly methods.  She has been teaching piano performance, composition, and theory for the past 21 years and has been chairman of Composers Today of the Music Teachers Association of California for the past 6 years.