About
Hestia Abeyesekera, who prefers to be called Hestia was born in the cultural city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. She was a concert pianist, who gave frequent concerts over the radio. Some of the works performed included Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mozart, Chopin, Scarlatti and Debussy.
Hestia’s education included a Licentiate Degree in Music from the Royal Schools of Music and a Licentiate Degree in Speech and Drama from Trinity College, London. Hestia was well known for her work in speech and drama. She has produced three Shakespearean plays and several one-act plays. The highlight of her career was the production of Thumbelina, performed at the Lionel Wendt Theater. The actors were only 5th and 6th graders whose superb performance moved the audience to tears!
Hestia further pursued post-graduate study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Royal Academy of Music, where she received a Licentiate Degree in Speech and Drama. Hestia was the recipient of the prestigious Edirisinghe Memorial Gold Medal for Speech and Drama. Winning the Gold Medal was reminiscent of her father who was also a Gold Medalist for Oratory in Law School.
After many years of teaching music, speech and drama, Hestia turned a new page in her career to early child development. She enrolled in Sri Lanka’s prestigious Woodlands Training Center for Montessori Education and thereafter accepted a teaching post in Montessori Education in Minnesota.
Using the Montessori experience Hestia began experimenting with a new approach to piano teaching. Since she was familiar with the traditional piano methods commonly used to teach young children, she discarded them on the basis that these piano methods were in direct opposition to the scientific pedagogy set forth by Dr. Maria Montessori.
Having no access to a satisfactory method, Hestia began teaching piano by incorporating the principles of Carl Orff and Montessori. This eventually led to an establishment of her piano method: The Making of Music, and later Kinderhaus of Musik (her own private school for young children).
Hestia has a Doctorate in Education, is honored in the World’s Who’s Who of Women for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Education and is a life member of the prestigious American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASACP).
952-935-7316 • 3503 Sumter Ave. S. • Minneapolis, MN 55426
info@kinderhausofmusik.us