top-rate viloin teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ronda Cole or Emil Chudnovsky. Many of the top Suzuki teachers in the area have studied under Ronda Cole.

Oops! Just noticed you are NOT interested in Suzuki. Try Emil.

[Anonymous]

How much does a top-rate viloin teacher charge in this area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't get answers here, the biggest competitions in the area would publish lists of the winners in each age group and the teachers, wouldn't they? I'd look to see if any of the teachers names show up more than once and then Google them. That would be for intermediate and advanced anyway.

Beginners are a little trickier. If it were me, I would attend some of the conservatory recitals, like Levine's, and pay attention to the youngest kids' technique. If the students of a particular teacher stand out, I'd start there.

The problem with this strategy is that you are looking for a teacher who grooms their student for a competition, and thus with a certain goal/result in mind coming out of that competition. There is so much to learning the violin than just one competition after another. There are so many high quality teachers in this area who don't teach with the main goal being a competition, whose teachers don't select pieces for their students to learn just for the goal of which pieces would show best in a competition vs. which piece is best for the student in terms of their stage in current development. If a certain teacher's name consistently comes up in the competition results page, that would raise a red flag for me. My eldest daughter studied with a top rate teacher in the area several years ago; the teacher was Juilliard educated and a very fine violinist. But the teacher did not push the kids to competitions and yet, she had a top rate studio. The teacher's name never comes up in these competition lists but does that mean that she is an inferior teacher to those who push the competitions and whose names are always posted on these lists? A teacher who is devoted to their student, teaches a balanced nutrition of scales, etudes, technique, pieces, but somehow is able to do so with dedication to the student with incremental and steady development over the years, this is what a healthy teacher does. All the competition teachers out there, while they may be very good, are sometimes in it for the notoriety that a certain result brings back to themselves and their studios. I would also check the turnover rate in certain studios. Sometimes these competition teachers experience fatigue and burnout in their studios. If you are a dedicated teacher, the students don't hop over to another studio. Some studios have a revolving door, check out the ones where the only way to get in is through the few openings when a senior in high school graduates. But the best way to know how a teacher teaches and a studio is run, is really to have conversations with families who are currently or formerly a part of that studio. Lastly, I would add that if you ask a lot of these competition students about their repertoire, many focus on a very few pieces, like 2-3 main pieces over the course of the year and they consistently compete with these same 2-3 pieces in all of the competitions for that year. There is not a whole lot of time to expand their repertoire because another competition is always just around the corner. The non-competition studios have the time to explore many more pieces in a year because they aren't met with competition deadlines. So these are two very different approaches to developing repertoire on the violin over the years.

Completely and totally agree with you but the problem is finding that excellent teacher whose students don’t participate in competitions, which are among the few performances that are open to the public. Other than word of mouth, which is what OP is looking for here with minimal results, and going through the published lists as someone posted above, how do you find this person?

[Anonymous]

There is a difference between teachers who focus on competitions, and teachers who encourage kids who are interested in competitions to compete. In general, competition wins start to become meaningful and valuable when kids get into their teens; at that point there are cash prizes of meaningful size, opportunities that come from the win (such as the chance to perform a concerto with orchestra, which is an awesome experience), and the experience of playing under pressure which is vital for students who are considering future music careers.

From what I can tell, Olga Khroulevitch has a competition focus. Amy Beth Horman did as well. Lya Stern does not, but encourages her teenage students to enter competitions. Emil Chudnovsky also does not, but also encourages his teenage students, especially the ones in their late teens, to enter. Ronda Cole does not, but is supportive of her students who want to compete.

In lieu of looking at who is winning competitions, you can also look at who the teachers are of the concertmasters of the youth symphonies. (Emil Chudnovsky's students are pretty dominant this year, I think, but this is something that will change year to year depending on the ages of students in a studio and how that maps against the ages of the orchestras.)

I disagree that if you're good, your students never leave. There's always some natural turnover (people move out of town, kids decide to pull back to focus on a sport, etc.) but kids do switch studios locally as they move up or down in seriousness, so to speak. Lya Stern and Ronda Cole, for instance, both have very high expectations for how much a student practices a day; if you can't put in a steady 2+ hours a day, you're going to get kicked out of their studios. If you're hoping to go into a professional career, you might eventually shift to study with someone like Victor Danchenko (a world-famous pedagogue who does take a handful of teenaged students, though he is mostly a teacher of college-and-beyond students).

[Anonymous]

PP 08:26, would please name your DD's teacher, since people here are asking for recommendations?

For PP 20:49, Lya Stern is based in Bethesda and charges more than $100/hour, as far as I know.

[Anonymous]

She movedto San Francisco while ago.

Anonymous wrote:While Levine has some reasonable violin teachers, many teachers prefer to teach out of private studios if they have the space, since Levine takes a big chunk of the student's fee. There are plenty of violinists in the NSO that teach, AMy Beth Horman is also highly respected with some great students, another option is U Maryland, some of their music school profs will take very advanced precollege students, likewise Peabody in Baltimore.

[Anonymous]

Lya stern is not only a great violin teacher but also an amazing mentor for her students. Very caring and loving person. I am glad to see her name here.

[Anonymous]

check the roster of teachers in MCYO. https://mcyo.org/?page_id=33413

[Anonymous]

The MCYO list is a good directory but it's entirely devoid of context. Even some basic info about which of MCYO's many levels the teacher has students in, and how many students, would help.

(Few students is, however, not necessarily indicative of teacher quality; some teachers have deliberately small studios. And some, like Jody Gatwood and Herbie Greenberg, are semi-retired.)

[Anonymous]

Top choice teacher from the MCYO list has to be Lya Stern. The majority of the co-/concertmaster seats are held by her students from year to year. We auditioned with her a few months back (did not get in), but she informed us her studio was kept very small, about 10 students. 10 very lucky and dedicated students, I would imagine.

[Anonymous]

Lya is an excellent teacher, but she focuses on teaching pre-professional students. If you want to play well but are not as serious as several hours of daily practice, you'll need to go to someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for all the suggestions! Besides AMy beth, could you please suggest other highly respected violinists who teaches students in NSO?

Our experience in having a teacher with a major orchestra vs a career teacher (pedagogue) could not be more night/day. The teachers who have a full-time performance job (ie, NSO), their focus is on the full time job playing in the orchestra. Teaching students on the occasional evening and weekend hours provides supplemental income for them, but they are not necessarily TRAINED to be a teacher/pedagogue. I have found that while they are amazing in their day jobs (and they must be to have landed those orchestra seats!), they lack the skill and the ability to distill or communicate effectively to a student how to do certain techniques or musical concepts in a way that is easy for a student to understand.

I think this difference can be somewhat similar to when you're in college and have a certain professor who has published so much and is a leader in their field, in their research... but yet, as a teacher, they are not very effective. Conversely, there can be violin teachers out there who are amazing at helping the student understand musical concepts, techniques, but the teacher may have never had these fancy day jobs. But that's OK because everyone has different talents.

A teacher we had (career teacher), once told me, the biggest challenge I have in teaching students and what I spend the most time thinking about, is -- "how I can I effectively explain this concept to my student in a way that they will understand and never forget." Maybe I'm wrong, but my personal experience has been that the teachers who play in the big orchestras, don't really agonize over pedagogy in the same way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ronda Cole or Emil Chudnovsky. Many of the top Suzuki teachers in the area have studied under Ronda Cole.

True, Ronda has trained many of the Suzuki teachers in the area. But, her teaching hours are inconvenient and her policies are terriby inflexible. Her fees are extremely high $160+ for lessons and then separate additional costs for weekend group classes. Even in the summer months, you are required to pay for group classes, even on weekends when you are out of town on vacation!

[Anonymous]

Ronda Cole's studio policies are not unreasonable; they are common for teachers who intelligently run their studios like a business and want their incomes not to be subject to the unpredictable whims of students. You are reserving a place in the studio with your fees; you are not paying for the specific lesson. The group lesson represents a time investment for the teacher, and sometimes rental fees for a place big enough to hold the group. You pay for your kid's private school even for the week that you take off for Grandma's funeral or whatever, after all.

Teaching and playing ability are largely uncorrelated, assuming that the teacher is teaching students at a level appropriate to their own personal technical capabilities. Formal training in pedagogy often doesn't yield amazing teachers, either.

People who studied with amazing teachers are, however, more likely to be amazing teachers themselves, if they are willing to pass on all the knacks that they learned.

Of the NSO players, not all of them are great teachers, and even of the ones who are, they generally don't have big studios (the orchestra keeps them quite busy). Ricardo Cyncynates, the NSO's assistant concertmaster, has, of the violinists, the strongest reputation as a teacher.

(I have had several violin teachers who were playing in professional symphonies, including in world-class ("top 5" global) orchestras. I have also had the privilege of experiencing the teaching of world-class soloists as well as soloists on a modest scale -- people who don't play hundreds of concerts a year, but do routinely play concertos with orchestra. I have played professionally myself, but am now in another career.)

[Anonymous]

The point you raise on paying for a spot in a studio during the regular academic calendar months makes sense. However, most studios have a modified summer schedule, and understand that so many families go away on vacation, or the students sign up for other camps, sometimes sleep-away camps that require them to be away from home for several weeks. During the summer months, Ronda should understand this and offer families the option to sign up for only the group classes for which the student is in town and available to attend.