Stephen Penafiel

Mr. Stephen Penafiel was born in Manila, Philippines and moved to Los Angeles when he was one year old.  Growing up, he played a handful of video games such as: Kirby, Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, etc.  Little did he know, the music in these childhood games would later give him the intrinsic motivation to pursue learning music. He was also influenced by the genres rock and metal.  His main musical influences derive from these three genres.  

In senior year of high school, he noticed a student playing the piano at the school cafeteria and was amazed at their ability to play Chopin's "Prelude No. 4 in E Minor. Since that moment, he wanted to further his musical journey by pursuing a music degree and attended Los Angeles City College's (LACC) music program with an emphasis on piano.  Once he graduated from LACC, he transferred to California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) to work on his bachelor’s degree, with a focus on music education.  After finishing his bachelors, he decided to go back to CSULA to work on his single subject teaching credential.  

From December 2016 to January 2023, he had the opportunity to work at a church as a piano accompanist.  He was required to play a setlist of music with vocalists for the English and Spanish masses and work with other musicians. Mid-September 2022, he became a private piano instructor at Bloom School of Music and Dance.  Whenever he collaborates with students, his focus is their needs, whether that be their well-being or helping them to the next step in their music journey. At CSULA, he was required to take pedagogy classes with different instrument types: woodwind, percussion, strings, and brass.  A few instruments that stuck were the clarinet, saxophone, vibraphone, and the trombone.  On top of these pedagogy classes, he partook in choir as a tenor singer.  

With piano, one of his favorite activities is sight-reading music.  Something about producing sounds from written notes on manuscript paper always gave him a sense of excitement.  Aside from sight-reading, his favorite styles of music to play are romantic, classical, 20th century, pop, and jazz. Even though he’s adequate with reading traditional sheet music, he’s also proficient with guitar and ukulele tablature.  Whenever he plays the drums, he takes more of a feel approach.