Carol Winston
Piano & Voice Instructor
Originally from San Francisco, Soprano, Carol Winston, studied at University of California, Santa Barbara, earning a B.A. in Music.
Carol has been teaching voice and piano lessons to students of all ages since 2010. She was on the voice faculty at Idyllwild Summer Arts Festival in 2005. Carol began her vocal training in high school, where she sang in music heater productions and with choirs. She began opera training in college and continues to perform with regional opera companies.
Carol has worked with various companies, including Los Angeles Opera, Orange County Opera, Guild Opera, and Southland Sings, bringing educational opera and music theater to elementary age students throughout Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino Counties. Outreach roles include “Marie” (Daughter of the Regiment), “Gretel” (Hansel and Gretel), “Little Missy” (Mission Nutrition), “Sugah” (Indy Jo) and “Ginger” (The Night Harry Stopped Smoking). She played the title role in “Little Red Riding Hood,” and originated the title role of “Estrella” in Guild Opera’s bilingual children’s opera. She began studying piano at age 10.
Recent operatic roles include “Violetta” in La Traviata, “Diana” in Orpheus in the Underworld, “Susanna” in Le Nozze di Figaro, “Adele” in Die Fledermaus “Frasquita” in Carmen and “Zerlina” in Don Giovanni with San Gabriel Valley based opera companies. A fan of Zarzuela (Spanish Operetta), Carol sang
Duchess Carolina” in Luisa Fernanda and “Marte” in Duron’s Salir el Amor del Mundo at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica and has performed in Zarzuelas
with the Jarvis Conservatory in Napa.
A Gilbert and Sullivan specialist, Carol toured nationally with Opera a la Carte as “Mabel” in The Pirates of Penzance, “Yum-Yum” in The Mikado, “Gianetta” in The Gondoliers, the title role in Patience and “Laeticia” in The Zoo. She was the soprano soloist for Ballet San Jose in a ballet version of The Pirates of Penzance.
Solo concert work includes Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart’s, Exultate ubilate, Mozart Requiem, Mozart Vespers, Beethoven Chorale Fantasy, Bruckner Te Deum and Vivaldi Beatus Vir.
Leilani Jones Wilmore
Tony Award Winner- Voice Instructor
Leilani has a passion for working with youth in the performing arts and has been teaching private Voice Lessons for 15 years.
As an African American artist, born and raised in Hawaii, Leilani caught the performing bug in kindergarten and sang, danced and acted her way through college, graduating from University of Hawaii at Manoa with a B.A. in Music Theory.
Following her dreams to New York, she got her first big break originating the character of Chiffon in the original cast of Little Shop of Horrors. Leilani won the 1985 Tony, Theatre World and Drama Desk Awards for her performance on Broadway in the Hal Prince musical, Grind, starring opposite Ben Vereen. She is featured on the Broadway cast albums of Little Shop and Grind. Her career as an actress-singer-dancer-coach spans over four decades and she has performed in musical theater on and off Broadway in the United States, Canada, Japan and Great Britain.
Moving to Los Angeles, marriage and children redirected her performing arts energy into volunteering with youth. As a parent of two musical children, she found herself directing and producing large-scale school and Girl Scout productions and becoming a volunteer musical theater vocal director at Bridges Academy, a school for special needs and gifted students. She created a children’s choir at her church, where her son served as the accompanist and her daughter was a vocalist and instrumentalist for 12 years.
She was a member of the faculty of the Idyllwild Arts Academy summer musical theater program for 6 years. Leilani currently serves on the Board of Directors for both the A Noise Within theater and the Lineage Performing Arts Center.
For the last 20 years, Leilani has also worked as a Voice Over artist for Commercials, Animation, Video Games and Audio Description for the blind and low vision community. She has recorded audio narration tracks for many television shows and over 200 movies.
