I have taught violin lessons now for over 35 years, mostly from my home, but also at the Vancouver Academy of Music, the Prince George Music School, the Victoria Conservatory of Music and also the School for Ideal Education, here in Victoria.
I have been a professional performer for most of my life. I was a member of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and the National Ballet Company Orchestra , both in Toronto. In Victoria I have played with the Palm Court Light Orchestra and was concert master of the Victoria Civic Orchestra for several years. I count myself fortunate to have played with the Victoria Symphony for more than three decades.
I have had Suzuki Teacher Training from the Suzuki Kingston Institute and from the Guelph Suzuki Institute.
I hold a Bachelor degree in Music Performance from the University of Victoria and am a member of the Registered Music Teachers’ Association of B.C.
My history with the violin:
- I was handed a small violin when I was 4 years old, not knowing that it was to become such an important part of my life. I remember it arriving in a crate full of shredded paper. I still have it hanging on my living room wall.
- My father was a music teacher and in the early 1970’s he first heard of the Suzuki Method of Violin, which had recently made its way to North America. In the summer of 1971 my family traveled to Oakland California in our Volkswagon van where we attended 2 weeks of Suzuki School. I studied violin, my sister, piano, and my father, Teacher Training. He soon had a class of forty violin students in our small town of Port Alberni.
- When I was 14 years old, my parents began bringing me to Victoria for lessons with Canadian composer and violinist, Murray Adaskin. Years later, when I attended university, I studied with Paul Kling who became the longest standing and most important teacher in my life.
- From UVic I went on to the Orchestral Training Program in Toronto, followed by L’Orchestre des Jeunes du Quebec, in Montreal, after which I auditioned for the Canadian Opera Company.
- In 2011, to my great astonishment, I needed brain surgery, which left me with a slight deficit in my right arm. At that point I stopped playing professionally and have built up my class of students.
Playing the violin has brought many rich experiences into my life. Aside from providing me with a profession and the satisfaction of being able to express myself through music, it has given me the chance to travel and brought me some very close friends. Music has given me some of the most poignant experiences in my life in which I’ve had to work hard, to take chances, and to extend myself - when it hasn’t always been easy to do so.