Latin America

A wonderful opportunity to experience the international aspect of Suzuki study in your local program or area association! As the SAA Liaison to Latin American Countries, I have talked to many SAA members who would like to be able to help the programs in Latin America. It has been challenging for everyone to find ways to do so, because of distance and communication difficulties.

In talking about this with several of you, a new idea was born which has many great possibilities for success. The idea is to have state, local and provincial Suzuki associations “adopt” a Latin American country and…

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The faculty of the Santiago Festival includes three of the five recipients of an annual scholarship given by Sony Chile to send a Chilean violinist to train with Dr. Suzuki for one year. 1991 and 1992 winners are Claudio Nazar of Antofagasta and Rene Santibanez of Santiago. 1990 winner was Lautato Rojas of La Serena.

A highlight of this year’s Festival was a reception at Sony Center to recognize these three winners of past scholarships. The students of each recipient gave a short concert, demonstrating the increased quality made possible by the year’s study in Matsumoto. The 1993 Sony scholarship…

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Four Americans were guest teachers and teacher trainers at the sixth Festival Suzuki de Musica (Institute) in Santiago, Chile. They are Bruce Anderson (Florida) and Caroline Fraser-Blondet (California), piano, and Marilyn O’Boyle (Minnesota) and Louita Clothier (Iowa), violin. Caroline, Marilyn, and Louita then moved on to Lima, Peru, for their ninth annual Festival, where they were joined by Doris Koppelman (California), piano, and Tanya Carey (Illinois), cello. There were 72 trainees on all instruments at Santiago and 52 at Lima, which speaks well for the future of Suzuki teaching in that part of South America.

Program Stats ASJ 21

January 3 through 10, 1993, Santiago College in Santiago, Chile will be the site of the first part of the 1993 South American Suzuki Festival. The event is sponsored and coordinated by the Suzuki Association of Chile, Concepcion Martorell, President, with the assistance of Marilyn O’Boyle, Director of Strings, and Caroline Blondet Fraser, Director of Piano. During the eight-day course, the following Teacher Training Units will be offered:

Violin—Unit lA, IB (with a preview of 2) and 3 (with a preview of 4) Marilyn O’Boyle.
Piano—Unit lA, IB (with a preview of 2) and 3 (with a preview…

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When I heard that my long term teacher trainer, Marilyn O’Boyle, had returned to the United States from South America. I was eager to speak with her and invite her to teach at our institute in Austin. I was proud to “show off” our program, knowing how greatly she had influenced my teaching and, in effect, the entire Austin program. Little did I know that our con­versations that summer would eventually result in the Texas Suzuki Tour Group International Student Development Program.

In the course of our discussions Marilyn mentioned a young Peruvian student whom she held in high regard…

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On September 26 and 27, 1992, I was in Austin, Texas, and I spent an hour with my former student, Manuel Bravo, listening to him play and talking about his new life here in Austin. I also used the opportunity to find out a few details about him that might be of interest to other people. Manuel started his violin lessons with me at the age of 7, in Lima, Peru, while I was there teaching for two years. When I left, he continued with Caroline Blondet-Fraser, whom I had trained in Suzuki Violin Pedagogy. (She is also an excellent…

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This report is a composite of information from Suzuki programs in Peru, Chile and Bolivia. Marilyn O’Boyle, South American Liaison for the Suzuki Association of the Americas, and Roberta Centurion provided the information from Chile and Peru. Martha Shackford contributed the data on Bolivia. Ten Latin American countries currently have members in SAA, and members anywhere in the western hemisphere are encouraged to send information and articles on Suzuki activities in their countries to the American Suzuki Journal for publication.

The Suzuki Association of Peru, founded in 1982 by Marilyn O’Boyle and Caroline Blondet-Fraser, is one of the oldest and…

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“‘Listo, ya!” “San, hai!” “Ready, go!” Spanish, Japanese or English-the result is the same for the Suzuki teacher-a signal to begin. I had the need to add some Spanish to my teaching vocabulary last January when I had the opportunity to teach in Suzuki Festivals in Lima, Peru, and Santiago, Chile. While the violin and piano programs had been started and nurtured by teacher trainers Marilyn O’Boyle and Caroline Blondet, there had been no cello teacher trainer in either country. Marilyn did as many violin teachers may do, out of necessity, and began some instruction in cello and some training…

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Here I am in the southern hemisphere again! Our family enjoyed living and working in Lima, Peru for two years (1984-86) where I started a Suzuki program and trained teachers and my husband started a band program at the American School. So we were very interested when our former superintendent moved to Santiago, Chile and wanted to hire us both to teach at Nido de Aguilas, the American School there. We decided to take the big step, this time with nothing held back. We resigned our positions at the University of Nebraska and we’re going to be here for many…

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