Why Study Suzuki Pedagogy at Sound Change Teacher Training Academy?
When you study Suzuki Pedagogy at Sound Change Teacher Training Academy, you are learning with a teacher trainer who has spent more than 25 years studying, teaching, performing, experimenting, and asking one fundamental question:
How can we help every child reach their potential?
My own Suzuki education has taken me around the world. I have had the privilege of studying with some of the most respected Suzuki pedagogues in America, Europe, and Japan, including Koji Toyota, Nancy Lokken, Ed Kreitman, Tom Wermuth, Teri Einfeld, Anne Montzka, Carol Dallinger, Michelle George, Linda Case, Helen Brunner, Almita Vamos, Blair Milton, David Updegraff, Charles Krigbaum, and many more. I spent three months studying in Japan with Koji Toyota and experienced firsthand the Suzuki Teacher Training Center in Matsumoto. Each teacher has contributed something different to the way I understand teaching—and I bring those perspectives together in my own work.
I am also a professional violinist who has performed in major venues including the Hollywood Bowl, Chicago's Symphony Center, the Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, and more. I understand what it means to develop technical mastery, musical artistry, and confidence over a lifetime—and I understand how the earliest stages of a child's education can lay the foundation for all of it.
But my education didn't stop in the studio or on the concert stage. I have taught for more than 25 years, raised two Suzuki children, and built a thriving Suzuki program from the ground up. I have worked with beginning students and advanced students, supported families through the inevitable challenges of learning an instrument, trained teachers, developed systems for running a sustainable program, and learned from the things that worked—and the things that didn't.
I am also deeply interested in how human beings learn. I continually study neuroscience, mindset, motivation, and human potential, including training with Stephanie Faye of Mindset Neuroscience. I believe that understanding how people learn is just as important as understanding what we teach.
At Sound Change, I want to bring all of this together.
My goal isn't simply to help you complete your Suzuki training. I want to help you become an exceptional teacher. A teacher who understands technique and musicality, but also understands children. A teacher who knows how to communicate with parents, build confidence, solve problems, and adapt to the individual human being standing in front of them. A teacher who can help families discover that music education is about far more than learning to play an instrument.
Because ultimately, I believe the Suzuki Method gives us an extraordinary opportunity: to use music to help children develop not only beautiful playing, but strong character, curiosity, resilience, confidence, and a lifelong capacity for learning.
I have spent decades gathering the knowledge, experience, and perspective that I wish I could have had when I was beginning.
Now I'm ready to share it all with you.