Board & Staff

Our Board of Directors: Volunteers Nurturing a Love of Music

A nine-member volunteer board of directors meets monthly, sets policy and oversees and supports the Music for Minors II enrichment program with the assistance of part-time staff under the direction of an Executive Director: Docent Training Coordinator, Program Manager, Event Coordinator, Recruitment Coordinator and Administrative Assistant. Each school that has the MFMII program selects a liaison as their contact person who promotes communication between MFMII and the schools and the expansion of the program at their sites.

Music for Minors II Executive Director & Training Teacher: Carol Zill

Carol Zilli is the founder and Executive Director of Music for Minors II (MFMII) since she established it as a nonprofit in l988 having been trained as a Music for Minors docent in 1986 in Los Altos. She was an active docent at Niles School in Fremont for many years where she started MFMII as well as a parent volunteer piano accompanist/co-director of the Niles School Chorus.

Carol is a graduate of Santa Clara University and holds a Standard Life Teaching Credential in French and English and taught at Hayward High School for 8 years where she established a CORE Reading Program for at-risk youth before marrying and having three children. She has taught private piano lessons and substituted in Fremont and Newark Unified School Districts.

Since 1990, Carol has taught the MFMII Docent Training classes at Ohlone College and the Fremont and Castro Valley Adult Schools training hundreds of community volunteers in teaching music to children. She also offered a mini-training for classroom teachers to empower them with music integration into their curriculum. She also taught classroom music and directed the after school choir at Schilling Elementary School in Newark for 16 years directing and producing over 30 musicals with children in grades 3-6. Carol currently directs her church adult and children choirs and cantors at liturgical services weekly. She is also a presenter at teacher conferences and workshops and service groups in the community.

Carol is a strong advocate for children and has served on the Fremont Unified School District Health and Sex Education Advisory Committee for 15 years striving for high standards and parental involvement in the schools for healthy childhood development. Her heart and soul is with Music for Minors II as she firmly believes that music is the answer to children’s academic success and social and emotional well-being as well as that of others as it is a powerful learning tool and a great healer for our world. Carol continues to envision MFMII’s program expansion given the powerful impact it has had on children, teachers, parents, and the community thanks to the dedication and love of its countless volunteers. From one docent in 1986 serving one school to almost 90 docents serving nearly 5,000 children with weekly music, MFMII has established its credibility as a nonprofit helping children in need.

Music for Minors II Board of Directors

Elise Balgley
President

Elise Balgley is a graduate of UCLA and Hastings College of the Law. She has practiced law for 30 years for the most part in the Tri-Cities of Fremont, Newark and Union City focusing on all types of civil matters. In addition to her involvement with Music for Minors II, Elise is an active member of the Fremont Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis Club of Fremont and Soroptimist International

Ken Smith
Historian

Divya Ramachandran
Treasurer

Divya brings multi-disciplinary expertise in Accounting, Insurance and Taxation. She is a commerce graduate with an MBA in Finance and has spent a decade working for companies like AAA, Marcus & Millichap (Commercial real estate company) and Ernst & Young. She then decided to take a break from work when she had her kids.

She trained to be a MFMII docent in 2018 and is a docent at Parkmont Elementary teaching Kindergarten, First and Second grade kids. It’s been the most fulfilling experience!

In her spare time she likes to listen to music and spends time gardening.

Jamunarani B Ramaraj
Board Member

Jem graduated with a MSc in Electronics in India. She has been the MFMII Liaison at Niles School since 2013, as well as holding other PTA positions (Reflections Chair and Treasurer). Jem has earned several awards including the PTA Honorary Service Award (2016) and her service as a docent in 2012-13 earned her MFMII's In Harmony Service Award (2013). In her spare time, Jem loves drawing and watercolor paintings. Her hobby has earned her awards including the Gold Prize Winner for Sri Krishna Era animals watercolor painting (2015). Since 2014 she has been teaching drawing and painting to children at the Fremont Art Association.

Katya Juliet Lerner
Publicity

Katya graduated from UC Davis, California with a BA in Communication. In addition to owning BuzzWord Consulting, an online Communication Consulting & Digital Marketing business, she works as the Director of Operations for an online music start-up company in the Bay Area, 4fame.com. Additionally, Katya has over 12 years experience in sales and team leadership, working for a fortune-500 company. Katya has always had a passion for music and music education, learning to sing, play the piano and violin starting at age 4. She and her husband have 2 children, Kingston and Kora, and are dedicated to helping our communities continue to offer music education to children for years to come.

Lori Moitié
Board Member

I am an expert in children’s entertainment. I have a BA in Broadcast Communication Arts from San Francisco State and an AA in Music from Foothill College. I own a Bay Area music company called Cotton Candy Express Music, which is currently 31 years old. My husband and I perform under the name of Lori & RJ Music. I am an accomplished and award winning songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, keyboard player, former network cartoon host, playwright and I play multiple percussion instruments. I teach performance arts to homeschoolers and write original musicals. For the last 15 years we also work through a Grant that takes us to bay area children’s hospitals going bedside and providing healing musical vibrations for the children and the families several times every month. Our duo performs over 100 shows per year at choice family venues. We play music for all ages. It’s an honor to be on the Board of MFMII.

Renard "RJ" Johnson
Board Member

I am the co-owner of Cotton Candy Express/Lori & RJ Music. I studied Jazz at Southern University. I have toured the world as a jazz and R&B bass player. I am an award winning songwriter, multi- instrumentalist, sound engineer, youth bandleader, producer, former network cartoon host, playwright, published author, and musical director for Lori & RJ Music. My main instrument is the bass but I also play the mandolin, ukulele, harmonica, drums, and more. After decades of being a family entertainer I see the need for music to be woven back into the fabric of the classrooms and children’s lives. I am honored to be on the Board of MFMII.

Roopali Rajvanshy
Board Member

Roopali is a mother of 2 lovely children and an experienced professional who has led various initiatives including collaboration, networking events, social media marketing, diversity programs, mentoring, etc. in organizations and companies ranging from high tech, non-profits, incubators, etc. A multi-talented and award-winning individual who is ready to learn and try new ideas each day.

Most recently she is the founder of Rcoz.us. Rcoz (our cause) is an open web platform whose vision is to remove stigma around mental health challenges and normalize conversations through short personal stories. They focus on making a positive impact in the community with digital media and user-generated stories that create empathy and compassion.

She was a core member of member Woman, Startup! CA where they built the organization from the ground up http://www.womanstartup.com/). The mission was to Advise, Inspire and Connect global and local communities of entrepreneurial women. Before that, she held Marketing related roles at Cisco, IBM and VMware.

She had various volunteer roles in school PTAs, VP of Olive Hyde Art Guild and the Charter President for the Rotary club of Milpitas.

At MFMII she hopes to help the organization get a lot of corporate sponsorships.

Chris Dong
Board Member

Chris brings 20+ years of global experience in an array of leadership roles in market research, strategy/operations, and business development. He is technology-savvy, and has worked in both large corporations (Microsoft, Cisco, International Data Corporation, etc.), and start-up environments.

Chris and his family are all music lovers. His wife Vikki volunteered as a MFMII docent, and his daughter Isabella has been a MFMII choir member and is a "Community Outreach Ambassador". Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, they applied MFMII methodologies and created a popular YouTube channel, “Sing with Bella”, to help many online communities and kids to continue with music learning.

He hopes to leverage his broad experiences to help MFMII strengthen its music learning and talent development platform, attract more corporate support, and make bigger and broader impacts to underserved communities in and out of the bay area.

New Board Member: Jaya Murthy

New Board Members always welcome.

Contact MFMII at info@musicforminors2.org.

Music for Minors II Staff

Sharon Filippi
Administrative Assistant & Liaison Coordinator

Ms. Filippi started her association with MFMII in 1988 when she took the docent training in Los Altos. MFMII was in its infancy with only a handful of docents. Over the years she has been a docent (in her own 2 children's classes but many others also), a liaison and the board treasurer. For the last five years she has been the administrative assistant. MFMII has grown, prospered and brought music to thousands of children during the years that she has been involved. She has been involved in choirs and choruses since grade school and knows the importance of the arts in our lives. Even though her major in college was history, her minors were in the humanities and music. It's a true mission to keep the arts alive and well in children's hearts.

email: info@musicforminors2.org

Sneha Antony
Docent Manager

Sneha has been a docent with MFMII at Parkmont since 2017. With a desire to involve in her daughter’s class, Sneha chose to venture through what she considers her most enjoyable talent - singing. She enjoys teaching music to various grade levels from Kinder to 4. The lock down and pandemic could not stop her. She had won several recognitions for being part of her college choir for 5 years representing the college and University at different levels across India. She is married and has two children - a prince and a princess . She loves hiking, yoga, ‘last-minute’ trips, macrame and enjoys music that her son makes. She has been learning Indian classical dance - Mohiniyattam for the past 4 yrs. Music and dance are one of the purest and creative forms of self expression which can improve one’s quality of life. She strongly believes that music and dance should be a part of every child growing up!

email: sneha@musicforminors2.org

Veera Rohinton Kazak
Program Manager

Veera has been involved with MFMII since 2007. She is a docent and liaison at Parkmont Elementary School in Fremont, and joined the MFMII staff in 2014 as Event Coordinator and then as Program Manager in 2015. She is married with three boys and was actively involved with Boy Scout Troop 176 , and enjoyed volunteering with Parkmont PTA for many years. She grew up in London, England, where music was important and sang in the school choir at high school. She had various jobs including a dental assistant, bilingual secretary and finally a software support specialist for Digital Equipment (now HP) for 10 years. She is also a puppy raiser/sitter for Guide Dogs for the Blind. She believes that all children have the right to a well-rounded education, and that should include music.

email: veera@musicforminors2.org

Poorva Singh
Digital Marketing Strategist

Poorva has been involved with MFMII since 2016. She started as a music docent volunteer at Mission Valley Elementary School, Fremont. Later in 2018, she joined MFMII staff as the Social Media Coordinator (now Digital Marketing Strategist). She has studied SEO & Social Media Marketing (in-campus) from Stanford Continuing Studies.

Happy occasions or challenging times, she has always found inspiration & motivation in music. She believes that music brings families and communities closer, and is a great tool to unwind and express, that is why all children should have access to it.

When she is not working, she is mostly playing with her dog, hiking with her family, reading a book, or cooking.

email: poorva@musicforminors2.org

Priya Pawar
Event Coordinator

Priya Pawar graduated with a MBA in Human Resources from India. Priya's love for music made her join as a docent for MFMII in 2019 and has come up with innovative ways to teach her class, which is loved by both kids and teachers. Prior to this she has worked as a banking co-ordinator, sales associate in India. She is trained in Kathak (Indian Classical Dance) and also has won many drama competitions in school days. She loves Traveling , Photography , Bollywood dance/music, Singing and others forms of art. Priya is a proud mom of two young kids and enjoys her time with them by making art and crafts, teaching them different subjects in innovative ways.

email: priya@musicforminors2.org

Ashwini Konambi
Recruitment Coordinator

Ashwini holds an MBA degree in Marketing from India and worked in the Banking sector before moving to the US. She has been a Docent with MFMII for the past 2 years at Niles Elementary. She wanted to be a part of her son’s school volunteering and music was a perfect choice.

Music has always been part of her life. She learned classical carnatic Indian music when she was in high school and took part in many competitions back in school and college days.

She also loves dancing. She's been working as a Bollywood Dance Instructor for the past 4 years at Riar Academy of Performing Arts here in the bay area. Along with that she really enjoys traveling, gardening, hiking and baking is another passion - she does take orders and makes custom cakes for any occasions. Right now she is learning Kathak (Indian classical dance) and also guitar with her son. Music bonds them together.

email: ashwini@musicforminors2.org

Divya Ramachandran
Docent Training Coordinator

Trupti Ramball
Docent Training Assistant (Volunteer)

Music has always been Trupti's strength and guiding force. She used it as an ice-breaker when moving to new schools as a child. If not in the class, she would be at the choir practice or in a music room practicing for events. When at college in Mumbai, India, she loved to sing. It helped her focus on the laboratory experiments better. In her almost two-decades-long career as an editor and journalist in India, she has primarily focused on the entertainment and music sectors.

Be it in happy moments or trying ones, music has been a constant in Trupti's life. Inspired by her daughter's relationship with music, she decided to join the Music for Minors II training in 2019. She started as a docent at Durham Elementary. In 2020, she opted to teach virtually at Musick Elementary. In 2021 she assisted Kenie during the fall docent training class as a volunteer and taught music in the FUSD Virtual Academy.

email: trupti@musicforminors2.org

Music for Minors II Support

Recruitment Team:
Ashwini Konambi (Leader), Carol Zilli

Training Team:
Urmi Choudhury, Claire Sauret, Sneha Antony, Suzy Young, Trupti Ramball, Priya Pawar

Resource Center Assistants wanted for:
Niles, Glenmoor, Leitch, Kennedy and Proctor schools

I just think it makes my students happier overall, which helps them learn and get along better with each other.
- 4th Grade, Parkmont School, Fremont