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2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Thursday, June 11, 2009 12:00 PM

Suzuki Strings: Music, learning, summer and joy

By BRIAN WILLIAMS, Herald Staff Writer

Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald

A summer trip to Japan 35 years ago left lasting impressions on Ottawa’s and the United States’ music scene.

Alice Joy Lewis founded Ottawa Suzuki Strings, which is based on the teachings of Shinichi Suzuki, in 1966. Suzuki believed in teaching music to very young children.

Lewis spent the summer of 1974 in Japan studying with Suzuki. During a couple of weeks, she watched as children from all over Japan came to study the violin, Lewis said.

Her son, Brian, who was then 4, participated, even though he didn’t know the language.

“They had the commonality of music,” Lewis said.

It was a program Lewis said she knew she wanted to start in Ottawa.

“I could see what a terrific thing it was.”

She began the Ottawa Suzuki Institute summer program the next summer. That initial summer, 85 students from Kansas City, Lawrence and other area communities were taught by five violin and two cello teachers, Lewis said.

Today, the summer program has a faculty of 40. Hundreds of students come from California, Texas, New York, Minnesota and many states in between.

“We’ve stretched out over the country,” Lewis said.

As the number of students and their skill level increased, so did the number of summer programs.

The initial Ottawa Suzuki Institute Mid-Southwest program is for young players and has daily, small group private lessons and group playing classes. Other theory and ensemble classes are assigned by playing ability.

The program also has a parent seminar that teaches parents creative approaches to work successfully with their children. A parent playing class is available for parents who want to work on their own violin or viola playing skills.

Sound Encounters was added 16 years ago, because the summer program was gaining so many advanced students that new challenges were needed, Lewis said.

“It was the next step for those young people,” she said.

Sound Encounters has since been expanded to 10 days and focuses on private lessons, master classes, chamber ensembles and orchestra.

A program called Mainly Mendelssohn for advanced string players runs the same time as the Suzuki Institute. Some students may be in both Sound Encounters and Mainly Mendelssohn.

The newest addition to the Ottawa Suzuki summer programs is the Brian Lewis Young Artist Program, which enters its second year. It gives private instruction to 12 violinists who are 18 or younger.

The 12 violinists are selected by a national selection committiee and their tuition is covered by a grant from the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation, Lewis said.

Programs aren’t just for students. Teachers can take Introduction to Suzuki Early Childhood Education and Violin Books I, II, III and IV.

The sounds of Suzuki Strings drew Shirley Koch from Texas in 1982, when she began a 23-year run of being an Ottawa resident for the month of June.

“I participated as a student, taking teacher training classes. I also brought unaccompanied students with me from my studio in Houston,” Koch, who moved to Ottawa permanently in 2004 with her husband, Russell, to be part of the Ottawa Suzuki Strings program year-round, said.

“I also was a student in Brian Lewis’ teacher course classes,” Koch said. “As a Suzuki teacher, you are always a student, as lifetime learning never ends.”

For Koch, June is the month of the year that she gets to have what she terms a “musical family reunion.”

“I meet many of my favorite people — students and adults — in Ottawa each June,” she said.

“It’s also wonderful to see the students and their development, not just as musicians, but as noble human beings, with good hearts, which was Dr. Shinichi Suzuki’s true aim.”

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Suzuki Strings: Music, learning, summer and joy

By BRIAN WILLIAMS, Herald Staff Writer

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article | Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article |
Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.