We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jelena Yowell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jelena below.

Hi Jelena, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

European Ballet and Piano School is family oriented school that mainly focuses on students brain development throughout music or dance. However we are not classical art performing school where students just learn and teachers are not individually connected to students .
We offer so much more on both of our lessons than no one in our industry doesn’t offer
Our ballet lessons consist of Gym, Barre, Stretching , Choreographies, Brain and focus games, Classical ballet, Character dance class and Nutrition. On this way we are not only developing your child body but entire human being . Ballerina has to know how to eat and what to eat, as much as how to stretch and everything else as we offer. We noticed that in our industry’ is not just enough 45 min ballet class . Parents has to go and look for gym or nutritionist or some other schools to fulfill what one ballet school needs to have
So to help parents and students we are one stop shop and we have everything in our studio
Our piano lessons consist of all 3 US Music Methods of Education plus European and Music Theory and Solfeggio . So our piano students are not just learning how to play piano as in other school but how to read , write and sing notes and how to compose too. The most important part is individual attention from our teacher to each and every student .
Every student in EBPS is part of our family and we take care of them as we take care of our family . Our teachers calls students when they are sick , work longer hours is students needs them or work on their days off if students needs them. Students are very much attached to our teachers cause of this and they develop much better and faster cause of love that our teacher gives to each and every student.

Jelena, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started dancing ballet and playing piano when I was 4 years . I didn’t even know how to write or anything else but my dream was to be ballerina and piano player . I can never forget when people asked me what was my teacher name I will say – Solfeggio and her name was actually Gordana.
2013 I have created European Ballet and Piano school in wish to help students develop and learn music and dance like I helped my son.
My education was strict and I had tough and strict teachers and Professor and there was never time for any games or play time but just hard work and practicing
With EBPS I have changed all of that . Our students can’t wait to come to class and never wants to leave home how much fun they have while they are learning .
Our classes are constructed for kids to have fun while they are learning . So for example at piano we are playing Building Tower game where we are actually playing with magnets learning notes and getting our hands and fingers moving , practicing our listening skills and focus plus develop our cognitive skills . And all of that just trough one minute game .
And on ballet class for example we play Day Night and Noon game where students if I say Day goes to Sauté jump , Night goes to split and noon goes to Sissone jump and every week we changed steps for each part of this game . On this way students not only practice steps but focus and listening skills too, cardio, muscles of legs and stomach plus they have lots of fun .
These are just two examples of things that we do that distinguish us from others in our industry. This is what we have noticed that makes kids happy and satisfied which helps them develop more and faster
Our students pass 3 years in one school year which shows how much students learn in such a short period of time.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

EBPS started working at Martial arts school 2013 , Than we moved and finally settled to wonderful studio and CoVID hit
To continue to provide services and help more students to develop we continued classes at the park
So while people were walking dogs or kids or spending some time with families in park I was teaching ballet on grass next to them . We could not dance in ballet shoes so we dance in sneakers . I can never forget we went trough sneakers super fast cause they will band from dancing ballet
During that time I was teaching piano virtually and that was hardest thing of all. It’s super hard to teach piano without student sitting next to you . You can not showed them how to touch keys, how to produce sounds of forte or piano or any dynamics when they are not next to you
However my students still did amazing job like nothing was not happening with world and like CoVID was not around
We had 6 concerts that year instead of 4 as we usually do . Kids were more motivated to learn and present that they all finished with 3-4 Certifications.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

CoVID time was time when I thought – this is it my business will just die as lots of others
But love for my students is tremendous so I could not just leave them .
I had to find way how to continue to teach and help students learn and develop.
So virtual lessons were great idea but the hardest one of all. I am teaching art and art is not touchable and it can’t be transferred to technology . It was super hard at the beginning but with my students parents and their persistence we made it to the next stage – teaching at the park
When you see people walking dogs and you are teaching pirouette on grass next to them or Mozart Sonata doesn’t look right you have to admit it . But we were so accepted by any park visitor so we even had audiences during some of our lessons and they cheered my students with big applauses . So we basically had shows every class cause we had audience every class watching and enjoying music or ballet
And my business survived .

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.europeanballetandpianoschool.com
• Instagram: european_ballet_piano_school
• Facebook: European Ballet and Piano School