Present at this meeting:

Frank Longay, Andy Lafrienere, Seth Himmelhoch, Mary Lou Roberts, Andrea Cannon

New Teacher Trainer

Congratulations again to Joe Pecoraro who is now a Teacher Trainer.

Progress on Recordings of Volumes 8 and 9

Frank Longay traveled to Los Angeles to supervise the recordings of Volume 8 and 9 at Penguin Recording. Bill Kanengiser was easy and cooperative to work with and was receptive to ideas. It was great to work with such an artist. Editing is now in place and an ETA of the finished product is expected by the first of the year.

Guitar Foundation of America Convention by Andrea

Andrea felt proud that Suzuki guitar was well represented at this event. She gave a talk on Suzuki Method at the ensemble showcase and really put in a plug for Suzuki Method. GFA education people said that we’re now on the map and we’ve set a high bar for future youth ensembles! Yossi Kohrman and Henry Johnston placed first and second in the Youth competition. Congratulations to Andrea and Andy for this wonderful achievement by their students! The next conference will have a focus on youth orchestras. The GFA will try to keep costs down so kids can come.

SAA Conference 2010 update

Pre-formed or ad hoc ensembles can register to participate at the Conference. There are (top ten) tracks for presentations with a focus on pedagogy topics. The top ten works like Dave Letterman, with areas listed on the web site.

Colombia report from Mary Lou

Mary Lou did teacher training at Javieriana U. in Bogota. There were nine trainees there. There is a teacher there who is also a chemist and guitar builder. He has a nice prototype of a ukulele sized guitar there.

New Source for Guitars

Frank recently mentioned on the listserv guitars made by Tom Malapanis of Anchorage Alaska. Frank’s student Ayoush is playing one. They have great sound and great tone and Frank is very excited about them. Frank says we need to push harder to get families to buy quality instruments. Compared to other instruments such as violin, we are still spending less for each guitar.

Mychal raises the point that its different for violin etc. because they do long term rentals with the small instruments, and then make the big push with the full sized instrument. Mary Lou mentioned that she starts with small guitars that are not as good, but makes a push for better and better instruments as time goes by. Frank and Andy point out that families can invest in a guitar and sell it to recoup the money and buy a bigger one.