Board Members

Co-Founder & President, Board of Directors

Matt brings a passion for teaching and a wealth of experience to the Make More Music Foundation. He attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD (2007), where he was in the Bachelor of Music program for clarinet in the studio of Steven Barta, the Bachelor of Music Education program, as well as a Minor in Piano Performance in the Studio of Nancy Roldan. His past studies also include chamber music workshops in Vienna with members of the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra, & studying composition with Belinda Reynolds.

As a music educator, Matt has taught private piano and clarinet studios since 2008. He is a certified K-12 Music Educator in California and Maryland and has taught in the Baltimore County Public School System, the Howard County Public School System in Maryland, as well as the SF Unified School District. He specializes in instrumental music but has also spent significant time teaching and directing choral programs. Matt has also held a position as Musical Director of the On-Stage Middle School Summer Workshop in New Jersey.

In September 2008, Matt moved from Baltimore to San Francisco and is currently a Clarinetist and Pianist with local groups such as the Echo Chamber Orchestra. Matt’s current performances focus on contemporary music and new works. His compositions have been premiered by the Echo Chamber Orchestra. Matt has also been an Artist in Residence with the SF Arts Education Project, teaching general music and musical theatre programs in San Francisco public schools.

In 2014, Matt co-founded Little Mission Studio, a San Francisco Music School, and runs day-to-day operations there while also teaching a full studio of clarinet & piano students and directing the Little Mission Jam Band & Little Mission Chamber Ensembles programs.

In 2024, Matt was honored in Yamaha’s Top ’40 Under 40′ Music Educators.

Matt is excited to bring all his education and musical experiences to a new generation of young musicians through the work of the Make More Music Foundation.

Co-Founder & Vice President, Board of Directors

Carol White is an educator with over ten years of experience working with for & non-profit schools. She attended Hofstra University where, in 2009, she earned a Bachelor in Business Administration. Carol currently serves as Director of Operations at Midtown Montessori Academy in Denver, Colorado. She is a New Jersey native, who now calls Colorado home with her husband and their house full of animals. She is excited to offer her business, educational, and creative experiences to the Make More Music Foundation.

Treasurer, Board of Directors

Timothy Hanson is a Bay Area native and a conductor, composer, pianist, producer, and theater artist whose career has taken him across genres and around the world. As his musical journey brings him once more to San Francisco, he is excited to serve on the board of the Make More Music Foundation.

Tim began studying music with his father before he can even remember. He holds a BMus from the University of Michigan, where he studied composition with Bright Sheng and William Bolcom, piano with Phillip Bush, and conducting with Kenneth Kiesler. Other teachers Tim has had the privilege of studying with include composers Lou Harrison and Samuel Adler and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

After college, Tim became the Founding Artistic Director of HeadlokShuffle, a New York City-based composer/performer collective whose mission was to transgress the boundaries of genre, performance practice, and venue in order to explore the exciting and unusual musical dialogue that can emerge when styles are juxtaposed or fused. In the domain of theater, Tim has nearly twenty-five years’ experience as a director, music supervisor, conductor, orchestrator, and keyboardist, having been involved with productions all over the United States, including four on Broadway. On television, he has worked as a music producer and arranger for the live musical productions Grease, Hairspray, Rent, and The SpongeBob Musical, and he has scored three films and even a video game. In the recording studio, he’s had the great opportunity to work with artists such as Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, and Boyz II Men.

As a teacher for over twenty years, Tim has always sought to bring the insights he gains from his own eclectic experiences into the learning space. He believes that music is a great conversation across time, place, genre, and culture and that breadth of musical exposure and depth of technique form the essential foundation for his students’ own musical journeys.

Secretary, Board of Directors

Annie Tahtinen is a business advisor to SF-based green architecture firm MKThink, proud SFUSD mom, community gardener, youth mentor, swimmer of the Bay, and Little Mission Studio piano student and LMS Chamber Music Ensemble performer.

Born in San Francisco, Annie has deep musical roots with her Great Great Grandfather Napoleon as an opera singer with the SF Opera, Great Grandfather Luigi selling pianos in the early 1900s for Sherman and Clay, Grandmother Dolly, an amateur opera singer, and her father Gary Leuenberger, owner of G.Leuenberger & Co Pianos, (now Sherman and Clay on Mission and 3rd Streets) and original sound engineer for the Yamaha DX-7 Synthesizer.

Having access to music lessons came readily with having family in the music business, and it is with a deep faith in the power of music education to help change lives for the better and the diversity within it to keep the arts culturally vibrant and relevant, that Annie is committed to helping our young people have greater access to it.  Annie also has nearly a decade of recent nonprofit experience serving in manager and director roles at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) and Jewish Vocational Services (JVS). Annie lives in San Francisco with her husband Roy, young son Leo,  and their two scruffy terrier mixes, Millie and Sheila.