Awards

The Creating Learning Community awards are designed to celebrate significant contributions by individuals or groups within our community. Nominations for 2010 Creating Learning Community award recipients are due December 31, 2009. Please consider those you know who have contributed significantly to the support of Dr. Suzuki’s ideas and the Suzuki community. Candidates for the award may be parents, teachers, friends of Suzuki, organizations, programs, etc. Nominations may be submitted to the SAA Office.

More on submitting a CLC Award Nomination >>

On Conference years, through the CLC Awards program, the SAA is pleased to recognize and celebrate significant contributions by outstanding individuals, groups, programs and organizations within our unique community of teachers, parents, students, families and friends, members of the business community and schools or groups involved in Suzuki education.

The awards recognize those who have worked toward the development and expansion of the Suzuki learning community in the Americas or internationally, or who have helped to preserve the Suzuki legacy.

Read more of Creating Learning Community Awards »

From a video presentation assembled by colleagues, family, and friends.

Cleo Brimhall is the founder of all the enduring Suzuki programs in Utah. She started the Utah Talent Education Guild under Dr. Suzuki’s loving guidance and has stayed on the SAU board for the entire 40 years that it has been an ongoing organization. Without Cleo’s guidance and patience it may not have grown into the amazing organization it has become today, the Suzuki Association of Utah. Here is its board. Cleo founded the first Suzuki institute in Utah, which is having its 30th anniversary this year. Several other instrument-specific institutes are in existence because of her efforts. This is why we held Cleo Brimhall day in Utah ten years ago. And as we all know, that means Roger and Cleo Brimhall day.

Read more of Cleo Brimhall: Modeling the Suzuki Spirit with Joy »

22 years ago, when he first moved to CT from Fairfax, VA to become the director of the University of Hartford’s Hartt School Community Division, Michael Yaffe had a clear vision of everything he was hoping to accomplish in his tenure at his new job. His belief in and love of children, his passion for music and his continual search for quality and excellence made this union a good fit. One of his first ambitious projects at Hartt was to bring on an expert in the field of Early Childhood Music Education, and to hire a violin teacher trainer for the existing Suzuki Program. Having a 6 year old daughter and a son on the way, it could have been interpreted as a selfish plan, but if you know Michael, that is not a possibility.

Read more of Michael Yaffe: Building Bridges for Suzuki in the University and the Community »

Good morning! I am Beth Titterington and a current SAA board member. I am pleased and humbled to present this award to Eleanor Allen. Unfortunately, Eleanor, who will be 93 on June 5th, is not able to be with us this morning. She is, however, informed about the award and is very pleased. Her four children, Bob, Burt, Louise, and Marion, and her five grandchildren and one great-grandchild are excited for her as well.

Read more of Eleanor Allen: Suzuki Pioneer in the Heartland of America »

Imagine flying over hundreds of miles of rivers, mountains, with a town here or there but mostly vast wilderness. Then though it is nearly 1 am in the morning, through the glare of sunlight, a small city appears below.

Upon arriving at the airport, you are greeted by a group of violin and cello students playing along with their smiling parents. Keep in mind that by now it is 1:30 am. You know you have arrived at Fairbanks Alaska.

Read more of Fairbanks Suzuki Institute: Gathering a Community Around Suzuki’s Vision »

On Conference years, SAA is pleased to recognize outstanding individuals, groups, programs and organizations through the CLC Awards program. The awards recognize those who have worked toward the development and expansion of the Suzuki learning community in the Americas or internationally, or who have helped to preserve the Suzuki legacy. These contributions must be beyond ordinary professional duties or routine work and there must be evidence that the welfare of the Suzuki community has been the primary motivation for the nominee’s work, not personal recognition or gain. Recipients must be active members of the SAA or other ISA region. You are invited to participate through submitting a nomination by February 1, 2008. The Awards Committee includes Board members and others.

Alice Joy Lewis, beloved Suzuki Teacher and founder of Ottawa [KS] Suzuki Strings, has been named the recipient of a 2007 Governor’s Arts Award. The Governor’s Arts Awards is an honor given annually to distinguished Kansas artists and arts educators; the award has been given annually since 1974 by the governor and the Kansas Arts Commission. Alice Joy will be honored at a ceremony on June 7 in Topeka, KA. In addition to her many achievements in the Kansas area, Alice Joy is well-known and respected throughout the worldwide Suzuki community. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the SAA in 1996 and was featured as a keynote speaker at both the 1996 and 2006 SAA Conferences.

Carol Carlson Tarr of Lakewood, Colorado, received the Colorado ASTA Distinguished Service Award for 2007 at the Colorado Music Educators Convention in Colorado Springs on January 19. Carol has served music education in Colorado for 30 years and, in addition to private cello teaching, directs the long-term Suzuki Cello Teacher Training Program at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music. She is a member of the SAA Cello Committee, adviser to the ASJ, member of the 2008 Conference Team. and former SAA Board member.

It is my great honor to present Frank Longay with the SAA Creating Community Learning Award for his accomplishments in developing the Longay Conservatory of Guitar. I first met Frank in the summer of 1991 when I took Suzuki Book One training at the Guitar Summer Workshop in New Milford, Connecticut. It was his teaching that inspired me to pursue Suzuki pedagogy.

The Conservatory is located in Santa Clara, CA. Frank began his program in 1983 with a private studio in rented space, and since then, it has evolved into one of the nation’s premier Suzuki programs, with 125 students and their families enrolled. Frank and his staff; teachers Grady Sloan, Scott Gossage, John Kline, and administrator Kim Buller work together to create, in the words of Dr. Suzuki, the “superior environment that has the greatest effect in creating superior abilities.”

Read more of Longay Conservatory of Guitar: Suzuki Vision and Leadership »

Dr. Douglas L. Turpin, Director of the E. Desmond Lee Fine Arts Education Collaborative, received his doctorate from Washington University in Saint Louis and B.S. from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He served as Director of the Whitaker Music Education Collaborative (1996-1998) and Director of the E. Desmond Lee Fine Arts Education Collaborative (1998- present) at the University of Missouri St. Louis. Before coming to the University, he served as Coordinator of Fine Arts for the Parkway School District, located in west St. Louis County (1972-1996) It is in this capacity as the Fine Arts Coordinator of the Parkway School District that Doug was nominated for the SAA Community Learning Awards.

Read more of Douglas Turpin: Establishment of the Parkway Schools Suzuki String Orchestra Program »

Undoubtedly most of us have read about Yuko’s childhood in her father’s memoir Suzuki Changed My Life. She began her violin studies at age four with Yamamura sensei. During her early childhood, her parents took her to Matsumoto to study with Dr. Suzuki as often as possible.

Read more of Yuko Honda: Treasured Voice for Dr. Suzuki in the Americas »

The Creating Learning Community awards are designed, in part, to celebrate significant contributions by individuals. This particular award recognizes a person who has worked for the development and expansion of the Suzuki learning community. Stan Smith is an ideal example of someone who is the catalyst for development of many learning communities: his own family (three of his children are now Suzuki teachers themselves), the many lives of the families he has touched by teaching at numerous workshops and summer institutes, and the past, present and future families of Stan’s program, Aurora Suzuki Violins.

Read more of Aurora Suzuki Violins: A Model of Effective Leadership in the Suzuki Community »