NETHERLANDS: October 2019
A landmark moment at Open Recorder Days Amsterdam (ORDA)! ALL of the Suzuki Recorder teacher trainers IN THE WORLD came together at this event. We took advantage of this to create our own “conference within a conference” the day before ORDA, hosted by our Teacher Trainer from the Netherlands, Jaap Delver, at his home in Breukelen.
We discussed required changes to the Suzuki publications (music books and reference recordings), the pedagogy behind the sequencing of the material, and incorporating Suzuki training into undergraduate music degrees, amongst other topics.
We also had the pleasure of a guided tour through Utrecht led by Dr. Thiemo Wind, an expert on the life and music of Jacob van Eyck. He showed us all the places where van Eyck lived and worked – all still there after 400 years!
I was also invited to present a session at the ORDA Teacher’s Conference.
There were a number of presentations:
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- Jostein Gundersen of the Greig Academy, University of Bergen (Norway)
- Robert de Bree of the Royal Conservatory, The Hague (Netherlands)
- Sylvia Hinz, recorder performer based in Berlin (Germany)
- Marina Kominkova of the Brno Conservatory (Czech Republic)
- Dodo Kis, recorder performer based in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Budapest (Hungary)
- Jakub Kydlicek of the Prague Conservatoire, Masaryk University (Czech Republic)
- Renata Pereira of Centro Suzuki de Educação Musical, Sao Paolo (Brazil)
For videos of all the presentations, including my own, see the video playlist on the ORDA webpage at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ROJJCfg7uMUHwEFO-Fau2xFNBYMWuFe
MEXICO: May 2019
I was invited to teach at the first International Suzuki Conference in Cancun. There were masterclasses for all levels of students, plus an orchestra program. I had a flute student participate in the orchestra, who came from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Her stand partner in the orchestra was from Patagonia, Argentina. Student exchanges don’t get any better than that!
While she was rehearsing in the orchestra, I was working with a group of recorder students.
PERU: January 2019, 2015, 2016
I was invited to teach at the International Suzuki Festival in Lima, Peru. Suzuki Teacher Training Unit 1, 3, 6, and 7 plus Teaching Strategies for the teachers, and masterclasses for all ages and levels of student participants.
ECUADOR: March 2018, 2017
I was invited to teach at the Suzuki Festival in Guayaquil and Quito, Ecuador. Introduction to Suzuki Recorder and Unit 1 teacher training for the teachers, masterclasses and group classes for students of all ages and levels.