Education
In 1986, during a chance encounter with Dr. Burns Taft, music director of the Ventura County Opera Association and founder and of the Ventura Chamber Music Festival, Steph was introduced to Maestro Frank Salazar, founder and music director of the Ventura County Symphony (1927-2001). He expressed that in his 30 years of teaching he had never before encountered a native talent like hers in someone who was self-taught. He subsequently urged her to enroll at Ventura College, where she was immediately placed in the music department's highest semester courses. Very soon after, Maestro Salazar invited Steph to become his sole private pupil, gratis, and hired her as his TA at the college, as well as Conductor's Assistant with the symphony. A solid friendship quickly blossomed between the two, based on mutual esteem and a deep love of music, and Steph found herself accepted into the warmth of the Salazar family. She was awarded with a Masters of Music equivalency after completing six years of private study.
"Frank was a genius, and that's a word I don't often use because it's so over-used and misused nowadays. Through his musical integrity, his passionate devotion to music and his selfless, sensitive guidance of my musical evolution, I acquired more education during those six years under his private instruction than I could have at any university. He taught me more than music as a textbook subject, he taught me about life, music as life, art as life and myself as an artist. He took what I instinctively knew and gave it a name. I often compare his influence to the scene in The Miracle Worker in which Annie Sullivan finally reaches Helen Keller with the word for water. It is not an overstatement for me to say that this is what Frank did for me with music."
In 1986, during a chance encounter with Dr. Burns Taft, music director of the Ventura County Opera Association and founder and of the Ventura Chamber Music Festival, Steph was introduced to Maestro Frank Salazar, founder and music director of the Ventura County Symphony (1927-2001). He expressed that in his 30 years of teaching he had never before encountered a native talent like hers in someone who was self-taught. He subsequently urged her to enroll at Ventura College, where she was immediately placed in the music department's highest semester courses. Very soon after, Maestro Salazar invited Steph to become his sole private pupil, gratis, and hired her as his TA at the college, as well as Conductor's Assistant with the symphony. A solid friendship quickly blossomed between the two, based on mutual esteem and a deep love of music, and Steph found herself accepted into the warmth of the Salazar family. She was awarded with a Masters of Music equivalency after completing six years of private study.
"Frank was a genius, and that's a word I don't often use because it's so over-used and misused nowadays. Through his musical integrity, his passionate devotion to music and his selfless, sensitive guidance of my musical evolution, I acquired more education during those six years under his private instruction than I could have at any university. He taught me more than music as a textbook subject, he taught me about life, music as life, art as life and myself as an artist. He took what I instinctively knew and gave it a name. I often compare his influence to the scene in The Miracle Worker in which Annie Sullivan finally reaches Helen Keller with the word for water. It is not an overstatement for me to say that this is what Frank did for me with music."
