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DANIKA STARRHARRT Encore Founder and Owner-Director (Instructor: Choir and Orchestra, Musical Theatre, Artist Development) Known for inspiring the highest potential from her students and staff, Danika has been a full time music teacher for over 20 years. With a welcoming and down-to-earth nature, she has inspired audiences of all ages with over 1,000 performances given around the Mountain West and West Coast. As a younger child, Danika gravitated toward the visual arts, always drawing or creating with her hands. By the age of 10 she became the youngest artist to be on the Arts Council of Placer County, CA, showing in galleries and on tours for her abstract photography or glass jewelry. By the age of 13, however, she decided to devote her life to music and drama. As she homeschooled herself through high school, she made a habit to wake at 4am every day so she could finish school studies early and then compose music, practice instruments, or write plays for 6-8 hours a day. Her passion for people, composing, writing, and acting soon led her to write and direct 6 musical theater productions at Folsom Lake community theater. During her young adult years of study, Danika was Resident Composer for three symphonies, two choirs, and the William Jessup University wind ensemble in which she also played (respectively) flute, oboe, violin, French Horn, piano, and sang alto and tenor. She directed local music camps for 6 seasons and formed her own 45 piece orchestra from her students for several years. Appreciated by fellow music instructors in her former communities, Danika was also invited to guest instruct/conduct and give presentations to Placer County Youth Symphony, Auburn Youth Symphony, and Foothills Youth Symphony. By request she also has given special improvisation workshops for the Music Teachers' Association of California where she taught piano teachers to incorporate structured improvisation into their music lessons. Danika spent a few years involved with West Coast Songwriters. During competition one season, she received the highest commendations for both songwriting and vocals. She also traveled a house concert circuit as a singer-songwriter with her band. Under a different artist name in 2007-2014 she released 12 solo albums, layering herself playing her compositions on 22 different instruments. Danika’s involvement in West Coast Songwriters also brought her an invitation to compose at Disney, but she turned it down — her heart was still always with her students. Since becoming a mom in 2016, Danika founded Song Bugs, an online community of music solutions for parents with children ages 0-5. One year, Song Bugs went on "tour" sponsored by the state library system, to present song circles and distribute Song Bugs books and CD's all around Wyoming. Song Bugs’ popular YouTube videos and curriculum bring inspiration and tools that allow babies and toddlers to develop their natural human musicality before it is buried due to lack of use and proper encouragement. Using these methods, Danika’s daughter, JV, started showing absolute pitch by age 1 and was playing the piano with two hands by age 2. At age 8 she now plays three instruments confidently, reading music, and likes to sing and write her own songs - especially parodies - and leads her own gigging girl band. In June 2021 Danika’s home studio in Meridian, ID (True Song Studio) had grown to 220 current enrolled students. In July 2021 she incorporated Encore Creative Center in order to bring together a whole team of other passionate instructors. In 2024, Danika retired from teaching fulltime and worked on packaging Encore's business secrets, including curriculums. In November 2024, Encore went legal to franchise (see ownanencore.com). She is still actively involved with day to day operations at the local Encore centers, including Encore Recording Studio and producing and being on the director team for Broadway at Encore. Danika is part of the Idaho film community, acting and scoring music, for which she has received numerous awards locally and nationally. She is also the current and founding conductor of the local Canyon County Youth Symphony. and she is a founding board member and Spokesperson of the committee to bring a civic auditorium to Eagle, ID. In her spare time, she cuddles cats and composes for her current performing group, Starrharrt Symphonic. She homeschools her daughter and is passionate about vibrant health and mental clarity. Danika leads holistically from a wide range of experience while keeping staff and students laser focused on their goals. She seeks to help her communities find joy and achieve excellence through every step of the learning process, and to experience what success means, with music, art, performing and creativity simply as a model for life lessons. |
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Personality Profiling Zone
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Danika's Enneagram: type 1, secondary 3
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Danika's "Big Five"
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Danika's Myers-Briggs: ENTP
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