30
Sep
2026
October 2026 Student Spotlight: Eliana Der
We’re excited to feature guitar and voice student, Eliana Der, as this year’s October Student Spotlight!
Eliana was nominated by her instructor, Molly Garrett, who says…
“Eliana never gives up on a song. Whether it’s a difficult classical guitar piece or some crazy pop vocals, she will keep working on it until it’s perfect. She is so kind and we have so much fun in our lessons, the time always flies by! I know she will achieve whatever she decides to!”
Congratulations, Eliana! We’re so proud of your accomplishments and can’t wait to see what you do next. For the full interview, visit our YouTube channel.
The instrument I play is the guitar and I take voice lessons.
My instructor is Molly Garrett. I like lessons with her because she makes me feel really comfortable and asks me questions about how I feel about different pieces.
She goes over little things with me sometimes that we want to get to sound really good.
I think I was about 8 years old when I started playing music. I can’t remember exactly why I wanted to start learning guitar. I know I wanted to for a really long time, just because I saw it on TV a lot and thought, “oh, that looks cool to do.” Eventually my parents got me a guitar and I started learning.
My favorite Stages memory is probably doing one of the talent show performances. I had a really good time doing that. My whole family came and they saw me perform and it was really fun.
My favorite artists are probably Taylor Swift, Jenna Raine, and Maisie Peters.
If I could meet any musician, it would probably be Taylor Swift. She’s just done so much over the past years and she’s really cool. I love her performances and how kind she is to all of her fans.
I like playing music because I can just pick up my guitar and play any song I want whenever. It’s really nice to be able to do that, it makes me happy.
Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel!