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To all Canadian members of the SAA; à tous les membres canadiens de la SAA:You are cordially invited to read Volume 1, no. 1 of the Canadian Suzuki e-Newsletter, created by the Canadian Suzuki e-Newsletter Committee on behalf of all Canadian SAA members! This e-Newsletter will be sent to you twice a year: January and June. Vous êtes cordialement invités à lire le volume 1, no1 de l’Infolettre Suzuki canadienne, créé par le Comité de l’Infolettre Suzuki canadienne au nom de tous les membres canadiens de la SAA! Cette infolettre vous sera envoyé deux fois par an: janvier et juin. Why a Canadian e-Newsletter?The idea to have a Canadian e-Newsletter grew out of a meeting of Canadian teachers at the SAA Leadership Retreat at Deer Creek Lodge, OH, in 2017 with a committee of interested teachers taking on the challenge of preparing the Newsletter you see today. We gratefully acknowledge the SAA who is publishing this e-Newsletter on our behalf. Pourquoi une Infolettre Suzuki canadienne?L’idée d’avoir l’Infolettre Suzuki canadienne est née d’une réunion d’enseignants canadiens lors de la retraite de leadership de la SAA à Deer Park en OH en 2017. Un comité d’enseignants intéressés a relevé le défi de préparer le bulletin que vous voyez aujourd’hui. Nous remercions sincèrement la SAA qui publie l’Infolettre en notre nom. Our goal:
Notre objectif:
To submit an article or announcement: Pour soumettre un article ou une annonce:
To contact a committee member: Pour se mettre en contact avec un membre du comité: New Two-Year Suzuki Pedagogy Program launchedat the Suzuki String School of Guelph By Paule Barsalou—Guelph, Ontario  Hurray! A new violin Suzuki Pedagogy Program has been launched! After years of efforts in finding a university willing and able to start a long-term teacher training program in Canada, The Suzuki String School of Guelph has made the bold leap to start its own two-year Suzuki pedagogy program. This program will cover the processes of technical and musical development through the first eight volumes of the Suzuki Violin School, as well as discussions of the history and philosophy of the Suzuki Method® and its application in the context of private and group lessons. The second year will also include a practicum of a minimum of two hours of teaching a week under the supervision of a teacher trainer. Participants meet for three hours per week for 26 weeks a year. Thanks to Prof. Jerzy Kaplanek and Dean Glen Curruthers, who have been wonderful supporters of the program, the Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) in Waterloo, Ontario is providing the teaching space and allowing its students to take the course for credit. I am the teacher for the first cohort, which started this fall. It is hoped that we will start a new cohort next year and start a cello program, as well. Starting this program was no small feat. Discussions with WLU date back to the ‘90s, when Daphne Hughes, Sally Gross, and Gail Lange made the first approach. It was a challenge to help university administrators, who were not familiar with our Suzuki pedagogy courses, to really understand the content, breadth, and value of such a program. The need is certainly there, as until we established this program, the only way for Canadians to participate in long-term Suzuki pedagogy has been to go to the United States! Some of the advantages of long-term Suzuki teacher training are:
As a teacher trainer, I must say I truly appreciate the opportunity to work with my course participants in such a deep and meaningful way, and really see first-hand how my instruction impacts their teaching. The Board of the Suzuki String School of Guelph must be applauded for their visionary work in supporting me in developing this program and including it as part of our school’s curriculum. Let’s hope that this Suzuki Violin Pedagogy Program will continue to grow and become stronger in the years to come! Musique sans frontièresCatherine Walker —Canton de Hatley QC Samedi dernier, cinq de mes élèves de violoncelle ont eu l’occasion de jouer à la Haskell Library and Opera House, qui est littéralement située sur la frontière entre les villes de Newport, Vermont et Stanstead, Québec. En fait, une ligne de frontière noire au sol sépare en deux la salle dans laquelle nous avons joué! Music Without Borders est une série de concerts destinés à réunir des enfants des États-Unis et du Canada pour leur faire découvrir différents types de musique et différents instruments. Mes élèves avaient entre 6 et 14 ans. Nous avons joué en solo et en groupe des pièces qui allaient des Variations jusqu’à la Gigue de la Première suite de Bach. Ce fut une merveilleuse façon pour eux de se préparer pour notre récital de Noël. Suzuki Method is Alive and Well in AlbertaThomas Schoen—Edmonton, Alberta The Suzuki Method is alive and well in Alberta! We have 119 registered Suzuki teachers working all across the province. While many teachers are located in the major urban centres, there are quite a number of very active teachers in smaller centres, as well. While much of the Suzuki activities are in bowed strings (including viola and bass), guitar and piano, we have a vibrant SECE community, a very active flute and recorder community, and a growing trumpet community. We also have teachers in Suzuki voice and, as of recently, now have a Suzuki harp teacher as well. I have had the good fortune to travel to many parts of Alberta as a festival adjudicator, and have enjoyed seeing and hearing the wonderful work Suzuki teachers and students are doing all over Alberta. Some activities of note are:
Une Journée des Altistes à la Conférence de L’Association Suzuki de l’OntarioPierre Yves Gagnon—Oakville, Ontario Au début de l’année, Pierre Yves Gagnon, Carmen Evans et Susan Beth Barak avaient amorcé une discussion sur la possibilité d’organiser une rencontre d’altistes Suzuki en Ontario. Ils en sont venus à la conclusion que la Conférence de L’Association Suzuki de l’Ontario, qui s’était tenue au début du mois de novembre dernier, serait l’endroit idéal pour organiser ce genre de rencontre. Ainsi est née La Journée des Altistes. L’organisation de leçons de groupe pour altistes n’est pas toujours facile surtout lorsqu’il y a un nombre limité d’altistes dans un programme d’école de musique. Ces altistes sont souvent placés dans des leçons de groupe pour violon ou violoncelle et ceux-ci se sentent souvent un peu à l’écart du groupe dans lequel ils ont été placés. La Journée des Altistes a comme objectif de permettre à ces altistes isolés de rencontrer d’autres altistes, de jouer ensemble de leurs instruments et de découvrir la richesse sonore de leurs altos. La Journée des Altistes a eu lieu au cours de la Journée des Étudiants dans le cadre de la conférence de l’Association Suzuki de l’Ontario, le 10 novembre dernier, au collège Humber à Etobicoke. Quinze altistes de tous âges et de tous les niveaux ont pris part à cette journée. La rencontre a débuté par une grande assemblée des altistes à dessein de jouer un répertoire choisi pour la circonstance, puis le groupe fut divisé en deux différentes classes. Le premier groupe comprenait des élèves du premier volume au quatrième volume de la méthode Suzuki et le deuxième était composé d’élèves plus avancés. Chaque groupe travailla sur un répertoire convenant à chaque niveau. Quant à l’orchestre de la conférence, il fut ravi d’avoir autant d’altistes. Jouer dans un ensemble constitué uniquement d’alto est une expérience unique. Le défi était de trouver un répertoire à la fois accessible aux altistes novices tout en étant intéressant pour les altistes plus avancés. La solution fut d’offrir des arrangements pour chœur d’alto où la ligne mélodique, jouée par les élèves avancés, serait accompagnée par une ligne d’accompagnement facile pour les élèves plus novices. Pour l’occasion Pierre Yves Gagnon a arrangé quelques pièces dans ce genre; ils furent bien reçus. Les livres « Ensemble for Viola, volumes1 and 2 » furent également utilisés pour accompagner les pièces du répertoire Suzuki pour alto. Au nom de la communauté des altistes ontariens, nous remercions les organisateurs de la Conférence de l’Association Suzuki de l’Ontario, et notamment Margot Jewell, d’avoir facilité l’organisation de la Journée des Altistes. Cet événement marque un pas important dans la création d’une communauté collaborative d’altistes en Ontario. La prochaine Journée des Altistes est prévue pour le début du mois de novembre 2019 à Guelph. Interview with Sue Irvine—Suzuki Violin Teacher from Prince Edward Islandby Karen-Michele Kimmett—Roblin, Ontario For many years, Sue Irvine has often been the only PEI Suzuki member listed in the Suzuki Association of the Americas directory. She is a violin teacher and Suzuki mother of Adrian, who is now a Suzuki teacher in Toronto. Sue has worked tirelessly to bring interest and prospective new teachers to the Suzuki method. For example, at the yearly music festival held in Charlottetown, she has encouraged organizers to invite adjudicators who, along with other music credentials, have a Suzuki background. She also currently offers group classes once a month with other local teachers, some of whom took Suzuki training years ago. Other local teachers are interested in learning about the method but have young families or limited resources making the pursuit of training difficult. In conversation with Sue, it becomes clear that cost and accessibility to teacher training are key issues in further developing the method. It costs more, for example, for a participant to travel to St. Johns, Nfld., than it does to attend the Montreal Institute. Musing aloud, Sue wondered if it might be possible to partner with Mount Allison University, for example, to offer an ECC course. Or perhaps the Nova Scotia Suzuki Institute could offer progressive teacher training units over a period of several summers to help with the training of future teachers. Recently the University of Prince Edward Island held a Symposium on the Arts and Sue hopes that at a future event, the Suzuki Method could be presented as part of the Symposium. Sue is currently working with some young enthusiastic teachers, including a cellist, she hopes will one day be able to take over her program. The challenge is finding enough students in this sparse population to make it possible for a new Suzuki teacher to make an actual living. Sue is working hard to find a solution and with her energy and commitment, I’m sure that she will. Body Mapping in the Suzuki Studioby Jennifer Johnson —St. John’s, Newfoundland author of What Every Violinist Needs to Know About the Body and Teaching Body Mapping to Children Musicians Move!There is a story about Jascha Heifetz being greeted backstage by an admiring fan after a performance. She gushed to him “Your violin makes such a beautiful sound!” Still holding his violin, Heifetz held it up to his ear and said “Funny, I don’t hear anything!” His point, of course, was that regardless of how wonderful a violin is, no sound will emerge from it at all until the player sets the strings vibrating, and that it’s ultimately the skilled movements of the player that make it sound beautiful or not. As a movement specialist for musicians, I love this story. As obvious as it may seem, some musicians miss the point that the skilled movements we perform in order to create sound is of the same category as that of dancers or other athletes. The vibrations that we call music can only be created through us moving our bodies. Furthermore, the quality of our movement will determine the quality of our sound. Body MappingMy research found that recent studies showed that as many as 75-90% of all professional musicians are regularly playing with some kind of pain, injury, or discomfort. To address this high rate of injury, Alexander Technique (AT) teacher Barbara Conable, founded and developed a method of teaching healthy movement through developing awareness of accurate anatomical information. For the last 30 years, professional musicians studying Body Mapping have recovered from injury by learning to move according to the true anatomical design of their bodies. Our world needs great beauty and artistry now, perhaps more than ever; we can’t afford to keep losing musicians to injury, especially when those injuries are preventable through putting good information into action! Suzuki Method and Body MappingBecause Suzuki teachers start children at such young ages, we have the unique opportunity to protect a young child’s natural-born movement patterns and prevent injury from ever happening! Suzuki was one of the world’s greatest pioneers in early childhood education; he helped to unlock human learning potential. Until his theories of Talent Education were shown to be universally successful, it was widely believed that some people were born talented and some were not. In scientific terms, Suzuki found a way to train the auditory cortex from a very early age, to prevent his young musicians from ever feeling limited in their talent. Teaching Body Mapping in the Suzuki studio is the next logical step in removing limitations from young musicians. Body Mapping provides a systematic way to train the motor cortex from a very early age so that young musicians never feel physically limited in their talent. By giving our students a firm understanding of how the body is anatomically designed to move, we can improve our students’ motor capabilities and prevent limitations and injury from developing. What SOSI Did for UsMegumi Harada —Etobicoke, Ontario We are a Suzuki family from the Etobicoke School of Music (EMS), with an 8-year-old boy, Gen, playing violin (Book 3) and a 5-year-old girl, Ai, playing cello (Book 1). We attended the Southwestern Ontario Suzuki Institute in August 2018. It was amazing! We shared on-campus accommodations with another family: Kasthuri (in the YAP violin program) and 9-year-old Vishwa (violin, Book 3). We knew them through ESM, but we bonded in that special way that only the sharing of living space can deliver. In past years, my children had taken part in SOSI only because “mom makes us”. This time, they had a blast with their friends! Our two families also supported each other throughout the week in both small and large ways — looking after each other’s children, going to each other’s recitals, etc. For Gen, bonding with Vishwa was an important turning point. Instead of being “what mom makes me do”, violin became something a little bit closer to “what my buddy and I do together”. Vishwa also came to Gen’s fiddling concert and solo recital — providing much-appreciated moral support. The two are now best buddies at ESM, so the benefits of SOSI are extending well into our regular year. In the months since, Gen’s playing has taken off in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined just a few months ago. It was very special when our home teacher said to us recently that his playing has “reached a totally new level of expressiveness’’. This year my daughter Ai was lucky to attend a master class with only two students. For 5 consecutive days, she had 30 minutes of undivided attention from a master teacher. This concentrated dose of top-quality instruction allowed us to make the kind of progress in a week that usually takes months, or quite possibly, never happens at all. Thankfully, our teacher focused on the fundamentals, which I often feel get forgotten amidst the constant demands of preparing for concerts, recitals, etc. However, during SOSI week, we were concerned only with posture and being in tune. And under the guidance of a master teacher! I was in Suzuki heaven. Finally, as a Suzuki parent, it is deeply soul-affirming to spend a week immersed in the spirit of Suzuki — in the company of, and supported by, teachers who are musically of the highest quality, and who embody so completely the love that is so central to everything Suzuki. Indeed, the love in the room at the SOSI Faculty Concert was palpable: the love of Dr. Suzuki, of the children, and of course, the love of music. As the SOSI organizers said on the first day: “Even in these troubled times, we believe in music. In making music, we come together. In music, we find humanity at its best.’’ This year’s SOSI was everything a Suzuki family could possibly hope for. We are going back next year. Canadian Teacher Training & Student ProgramsBorealis Suzuki Winds Institute Great Lakes Suzuki Flute Institute Institut Suzuki Montréal Langley Community Music School Suzuki Workshop Newfoundland and Labrador Suzuki Institute River City Suzuki Piano Institute Southwestern Ontario Suzuki Institute Studio of Gail Lange Suzuki Valhalla Institute Thames Valley Suzuki School |
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