Our Teachers
Karen Simpson, owner and founder of the Music Clinic, has been teaching music in New Hampshire since 1976. A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, she holds a degree in Music Education and has been a Board-Certified Music Therapist. She teaches voice, guitar, piano, violin, and many other instruments as well as theory, songwriting, and conducting. She has directed a number of choirs and performed as a vocalist throughout New England. Karen has also judged local singing and karaoke competitions and the 2006 New Hampshire Idol competition.
Mary Divers specializes in brass and woodwinds. She holds a Bachelors degree in Music Education from Plymouth State College in New Hampshire and a Masters degree in Music Education from Westchester University in Pennsylvania. She conducts the Ashland Community Choir and the Joyful Noise Bell Choir, and she has been teaching since 1975. Mary also conducts the New Horizons Band of the Lakes Region, which rehearses at the Music Clinic and performs all over the Lakes Region.
Maryam Khajavi-Cullen specializes in piano and music theory. She holds a degree from the Royal College of Music of London, England. She is an accomplished pianist and experienced teacher having taught in both Europe and the United States since 1981. Maryam taught in California, opened her own studio in Colorado, and taught briefly in Vancouver, BC before coming to the Music Clinic in 2004. She loves to teach and has held a number of piano student recitals every year.
Mark Hamer specializes in guitar and bass guitar. He also teaches voice and beginning drums. Mark holds a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Salem State College and a Masters degree in Foundations of Education from Antioch New England Graduate School. From January 2002 through June 2010 Mark was the Music Teacher (K-5) in the Elm Street and Pleasant Street Elementary Schools in Laconia. He is currently retired from that position and now teaches part-time at the Music Clinic. Over the years he has taught in the public schools many of the students who have also studied here at the Music Clinic. Mark is also currently working on an internship at Elliot Hospital to become a Certified Music Practitioner to provide healing music for patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospice centers. He has experience building and repairing guitars and also enjoys singing and playing guitar in a working band.
Laurie McDaniel has performed in over forty theatrical productions in New Hampshire and California. She was an actress at Portsmouth’s Theatre-by-the-Sea before graduating from Plymouth State University where she studied Drama and French Education. After graduation, Laurie moved to Santa Barbara where she played a dozen leading roles in many theaters. Laurie also attended The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, and later founded the Tujunga Theatre Company, producing plays in a hilltop mansion. Laurie has devoted much of her professional life to teaching Theatre, Acting, English, French, and Spanish to students from childhood to adult, and is a skilled and enthusiastic educator and performer.