Kyoko Yamamoto

Summer Winds Director

Originally from Nagano, Japan, Kyoko Yamamoto has established herself as a veritable music education institution in the City of Burlingame. While raising her two sons in the Burlingame School District and shepherding them through Burlingame High School, she rose from a busy mother, an avid, celebrated volunteer and professional piano accompanist to Music Teacher and then Director for the city’s prestigious Elementary schools, its Middle School, and now its renowned Burlingame High School.

During those early years she earned the PTA Honorary Service Award from Burlingame School District for her excellent and tireless efforts. Today, she has several students whom she has consecutively taught from fifth-grade through their junior and senior years! Kyoko delivers quality music education but takes great pride in her never-ending quest to develop the “whole” student musician. She has become a well-known and treasured part of Burlingame’s larger community.

Kyoko graduated from Shobi University, with a major in Music Information in 1995. After moving to the United States in 1995, she dipped her toes into ESL classes and a songwriting course at UCLA Extension. After graduating from San Francisco State with Honors, she received the W.M. F. Zech Memorial Award from its music department. From 2014 to 2015, during the time she served as a Student Teacher at Burlingame Intermediate School, and subsequently achieved a position as Elementary School Music Teacher she also managed to earn her Single Subject Credential in Music. She is the proud recipient of Washington Elementary School’s coveted “Golden Paw Award” which honored her dedication and unique contributions to its close-knit community of parents and educators.

Again, while balancing parenthood, volunteering, and the rigorous demands of serving as Burlingame Intermediate School’s Band Teacher from 2016 to 2019, and later, as the High School Music Director at Burlingame High School from 2019 until now, Kyoko charged forward and earned her Master’s Degree in Arts, Music Education in 2021. She has maintained her fluency in Japanese, and is proficient on piano, bassoon and flute. In 2022, Kyoko joined Peninsula Symphony as a bassoonist.
Kyoko’s more recent and notable achievements include membership with NAFME, CMEA, CAJ, CODA, and CBDA as well as serving as a Board member of CAJ as Membership Chair and CMEA Bay Section as Assistant Jazz Representative.

Kyoko serves as a co-department chair of VAPA, member of School Advisory Council (School Site Council) from 2021 to 2024, and served on MTSS Tier 1 Intervention team from 2020 to 2023. To her credit, since 2017, her students have been selected for the CASMEC all-state honor ensembles in consecutive years. In addition, Kyoko’s students have been consistently selected as members of SFJazz High School All-Stars, Stanford Jazz Workshop’s Miles Ahead Big Band, and San Jose Jazz players. Kyoko proudly led her students at several prestigious and competitive festivals including CMEA Jazz, Band and Orchestra Festival, SMUHSD Jazz Festival, Stanford Jazz Festival, CSM Jazz Festival, and Folsom Jazz Festival. Kyoko served as Musical Orchestra Director for the Burlingame High School’s musical productions of “Into the Woods,”“Disaster!,”and “Footloose.”