Levykh Academy

My experience with Ella Levykh has been terrible. If I could give her negative stars, that would be what she would have gotten.
From the beginning, Ella seemed very money motivated. For my 2 girls taking piano lessons, she charged me a $ 50 cash assessment fee which I have never heard of and never had any home teacher ever charge my parent while I was taking piano when I was a child. I agreeded to a fee of $ 80/​hour with most of it on trade through a barter organization Ella and I belong to. As she was the only piano teacher available through our trade organization, seemed to have some credentials, and I expected my children to take piano lessons with her for a long time, we agreed to the above. From the first piano class she offered my girls extra singing lessons for addition trade fees. Subsequently, she said that my older girl has ADHD and needed some therapy and in particular, they offered music therapy which is offered in a cash fee. I mainly brushed aside her additional offers.
At 6 months, Ella changed the terms on me saying that she wanted half cash and half trade. I tried to reason with her as a business person but I could see with all the years of her education she had, she could not reason with me as a business person. Instead she went on about how she could not buy groceries or pay for utilities. (As a business person when we deal through a barter organization, it is either you accept it or not, you do not go into personal matters i.e. paying for your necessities.) Ella calls herself an academy and follows the school year with its holidays (even though she operates out of a dated basement), but she will not honor the agreed upon terms for the school year and she said that she never promised me that she could keep the terms.
Furthermore, she has been terribly rude beyond belief to myself, my younger daughter and my older daughter especially, on numerous occassions, i.e. saying to my older daughter that she was «talking to a wall» at least 6 times over a couple of lessons, swiping both my daughters’ hands off the piano when she doesn’t think they are playing correctly, scolding me when I could not find my new cell phone when it was ringing.
Even though she admits to not having medical credentials to qualify my older daughter as ADHD, she claims that my older daughter has ADHD as she fidgets and sometimes does not respond to her when Ella is being AGGRESSIVE to her. I did say that if someone was aggressive to her she responds by shutting down as would many children. Ella responded that she herself could not change as this is her personality of X number of years. Further in a discussion, I told her that my older girl has been checked out by the doctor and she does not have ADHD but on the next lesson, Ella brought it up again saying that she should be checked out. She is doing a huge disservice not only to herself, her husband, the medical community and also to any families that have children that may be more active.
The crux of all this agitation is she created this 3 month prepayment plan in which she said would average to 4 classes per month multiplied by 3 months and multiplied by 2 children. This was for the ease of her accounting which I agreed. Over the 6 months we only had 22 classes and when I brought this to her attention, she said that she had «already told me» about this plan. I did not agree to be overcharged by $ 288 barter and $ 32 cash; I only agreed to to prepay with the idea that it would work out to 24 classes over 6 months which is exactly what I paid for. Over the phone, she was ready to argue with me which makes no sense. If it was up to Ella, she would not reimburse me as we are definitely not continuing with this «piano teacher» but luckily we belong to the barter organization who agrees with us to return the barter portion of the funds. She still owes me the cash portion which I expect Ella will keep it for her groceries and utilitiies!!!
My daughters and I have put up a lot with this terribly rude and money hungry piano teacher who apparently is also a singing teacher, who is also a music therapist who helps kids with ADHD, autism, and other disabilities. Really!?! She didn’t even know how to deal with a child who fidgets or not listen to her during the piano lessons. Ella Levykh and her husband, Michael Levykh, runs
… and
… as well out of their basement. Please examine whether you really want bring your children into this type of situation and deal with such poor business business practices and especially deal with Ella as a therapists/​piano teacher, etc.
If Ella or Michael reads this, this is actually a great free service to them to understand how you should treat your clients/​students. If you actually had a good reputation, clients/​students would be seeking you out, not the other way!