Our Teachers

Regina Vendetti graduated with her Master’s in viola performance and pedagogy from the University of Colorado Boulder. She is a dedicated, enthusiastic, patient teacher who will ensure that your child will love playing the violin viola or cello! Regina completed her undergraduate degree in music education and performance at Illinois State University where she studied with Katherine Lewis and taught in the university’s award winning after-school orchestra program, String Project. Before moving to Colorado, she taught in public schools as a substitute teacher, general music teacher, and choir teacher at a K-8 district. She has taught private string lessons for 9 years. She is an active musician, having played with orchestras in Illinois, Colorado, and Wyoming. Committed to continued learning and being up to date on the current string pedagogy practices, she is a member of the American String Teacher’s Association, American Viola Society, and Suzuki Association of Americas. Regina enjoys helping students to find music that they are excited about playing, and is passionate about teaching non-traditional music, and music by underrepresented composers.

Dr. Ryan Jacobsen completed his Doctorate at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a full-time member of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. As a violinist, he has won several prestigious competitions, including the MusicFest Northwest Young Artist competition as well as the Whitman Symphony Concerto and Aria competition. Ryan has also been invited to solo with the Spokane Symphony, the Walla Walla Symphony, and the Whitman Symphony. He is a Suzuki Certified violin teacher who has been teaching violin and viola for over twelve years. He specializes in working with young children and has a gift for connecting with budding musicians. Ryan incorporates a variety of repertoire and techniques to enhance the student learning experience. It is important to him that each student is fully engaged in the learning process and he emphasizes student driven learning.

Noted for his passionate and expressive playing, Dr. Adam Riggs is an avid chamber musician, teacher, and performer. He has performed and attended music festivals across Canada, the United States, Italy and the Czech Republic.
An avid teacher, Adam completed his Suzuki Teacher Training with Carol Tarr at the University of Denver and also completed his Suzuki Book 1 teacher training with Rick Mooney at the Greater Austin Suzuki Institute. He serves on the board of the Suzuki Association of Colorado and teaches at Rockley Music in Lakewood and Silver Strings Academy in Westminster, while maintaining a robust private studio in Arvada.

Learning the cello is something that everyone can do, with hard work and consistency. The skills that are required to become a good cellist and musician, such as tenacity, self awareness, posture, and listening, are skills that will build character and lead to success in any chosen field. Through the use of positive reinforcement and an emphasis on a strong technique, Adam helps his students achieve their goals.

Karen Lauffer founded Silver Strings Academy in 2015, seeing a strong need for high quality, fun string instruction in the Denver Metro Area. She spent the past seven years teaching students in Arvada, Westminster, Golden, Broomfield and Denver to be the best musicians they can be! Many of her students can be found in local youth orchestras such as the Front Range Youth Symphony, as well as All-County and All-State Orchestras. She is so happy that Regina Vendetti is running Silver Strings Academy now, and continuing to offer excellent, fun music lessons in the Arvada area!