Kendall Banks

Hello, and welcome to my studio! My name is Kendall Banks, and I have been teaching Suzuki violin for fifteen years. I believe that music is accessible to everyone, and I want to encourage people from every age group and walk of life to follow their interest.

I began studying violin when I was three years old in the Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville Suzuki Program. During the next eleven years, I developed my musicianship under Vera McCoy-Sulentic, the head of the Suzuki Program at SIUe. I graduated from the program when I was fifteen and brought my time there to a close as the Senior Concerto Competition winner. I was privileged to be able to perform Haydn’s Concerto No. 2 in G major, 1st movement as a finale to my time with the program.

When I was sixteen, I auditioned for the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra and joined them the same year. I spent the next three years with the youth orchestra and found my next teacher through a coaching session with a St. Louis Symphony member: Dana Edson Myers. She taught me for three years, and under her instruction I developed and matured as a musician.

While I had taught privately since I was still a student myself, it wasn’t until I was eighteen that I began formal education as a Suzuki teacher. This education came, once again, through the instruction of Vera McCoy-Sulentic. I completed units I and II in 2008, and then went on to teach for eight years, developing my private studio and gaining more teaching experience. In 2016 I continued my pedagogy training, adding units III and IV to my teaching qualifications.

I continue to teach privately, host student recitals, and take on playing gigs whenever I get the opportunity. Currently, I am attending Lewis and Clark Community College in the pursuit of a degree in exercise science. I have a deep interest in human physiology, and I hope to inform my teaching through the study of biomechanics and functional movement.