Lisa Manning Deakins Is a Violinist, Fiddler, and Registered Suzuki Violin Teacher Living in Charleston, South Carolina

Lisa Manning Deakins is a violinist, fiddler, and registered Suzuki violin teacher living in Charleston, South Carolina. She is a versatile musician who enjoys performing and teaching across the United States and whose music has taken her to renowned stages including the Grand Ole Opry, the Crook & Chase television show, Piccolo Spoleto Festival Stages, and Song of the Mountains. Lisa's love for music began at the age of four when she started Suzuki violin lessons in Burlington, NC. She continued her music education at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she received a Bachelor of Music degree in Commercial Music Performance. Lisa also holds a Master of Music degree in Music Education from East Carolina University. Lisa has worked professionally as a fiddle player and background vocalist for country music artists including Pam Tillis, Grand Ole Opry legend Whisperin’ Bill Anderson, and more. She has recorded three professional albums and received an International Bluegrass Music Association Award for “Recorded Event of the Year.” Lisa is the owner of Deakins Suzuki Strings and enjoys teaching children of all ages in her home studio in Mount Pleasant. Lisa is a frequent guest clinician for fiddle and violin and has taught at Suzuki institutes and workshops across the country, including Stevens Point, WI, St Petersburg, FL, Los Angeles, CA, Augusta, GA, and Miami, FL. Lisa is an active member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas and you may have seen her articles published in the American Suzuki Journal. Lisa's students study various fiddling styles as well as classical playing. Lisa has compiled and arranged a series of music books for Suzuki students called “Fiddlin' Favorites” that is licensed by the International Suzuki Association and sold nationwide. In addition to teaching, she performs across the southeast with Gravel Road Bluegrass Band and various other bluegrass, country, and classical ensembles. In her spare time, Lisa enjoys strolling the streets of downtown Charleston with her husband, Derek, and young son, Kirby.

Derek Deakins is a fiddler, violinist, guitarist, and orchestra conductor originally from Kingsport, Tennessee. His musical journey began with Suzuki violin lessons at the age of five and has taken him all around the world as a professional musician. Derek has performed in several foreign countries and all of the 48 contiguous United States in venues ranging from Madison Square Garden to the Grand Ole Opry. Derek graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, with a Bachelor of Music degree in Instrumental Music Education and holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. While living in Nashville, Derek performed with major recording artists such as The Osborne Brothers, James Monroe, Charlie Daniels, Craig Morgan, Blake Shelton, and many others. He has four professional albums, and his television appearances include Grand Ole Opry Live, Good Morning America, The CBS Early Show, The Jimmy Kimmell Show, and Late Night with Craig Ferguson. Recently, Derek has enjoyed working as Director of Orchestras at Wando High School in Mt Pleasant, South Carolina. He also pioneered the guitar program and Advanced Placement Music Theory programs. Derek is a quarterfinalist for the Grammy Music Educator of the Year Award and is honored to be on staff at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida as a guest musical clinician. When Derek is not teaching, you will find him playing guitar and singing as part of Gravel Road Bluegrass Band. He also enjoys performing with various other bluegrass and country groups and traveling with his wife to teach together at Suzuki Institutes and workshops across the country! Collaborative Pianist Zaiba Sheikh has served on the collaborative piano staff of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Cleveland Opera on Tour, ARIA International Summer Music Academy, and LMFL programs in Bristol, U.K. and Llandovery, Wales and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France. Before moving to Charlotte, she also served as Choir Accompanist, Assistant Music Director for Musicals, and French teacher at University School, a private boy’s preparatory high school in Hunting Valley, Ohio. In the Charlotte region she has served as pianist for faculty and students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as well as at Winthrop University. As a student of Menachem Pressler and Leonard Hokanson at Indiana University, she earned the Bachelor of Music Degree, and added a Master’s Degree in Collaborative Piano from The Cleveland Institute of Music under Anne Epperson and Russell Miller. She then was offered a position on the Collaborative Piano Staff at that prestigious school. Zaiba Sheikh has widely collaborated with her husband violinist David Russell, the Anne R. Belk Distinguished Professor of Music at UNC Charlotte, in recitals in the U.S., Canada, China, Spain and the U.K. She is currently the Pianist and Music Director for Opera Carolina’s Opera Xpress as well as a teacher for Project Harmony with Arts+, where she implements techniques from the Dalcroze Method to engage students in learning music through movement.