European Suzuki Association - Teachers Newsletter Vol 36 2016

17 Continuous Professional Development Courses for more details contact the ESA Office esa@europeansuzuki.org F or two decades teachers have been coming to observe at the Cambridge Suzuki Young Musicians Summer school; coming from Canada, Finland, Japan, Holland, Spain, USA and UK, and last year we had a teacher from Argentina. Recently the ESA has begun to support a wider development of Continuous Pro- fessional Development (CPD). It has initi- ated registrations of CPD Courses with ESA Certification giving Teacher Trainers the opportunity to offer Suzuki teachers a pathway of continual discovery and learning. Last year’s pathway covered the whole gamut of playing from beginner to ad- vanced. Peter Nagy (Director of the Key- board department of the Liszt Academy, Budapest) came and gave two days of Masterclasses, one day for solo and duet works of Bartok, Liszt, Ligeti, and the other for chamber music with strings and also clarinet (Bartok, Liszt, Kurtag). Mr Nagy has studied the folk origins of Bar- tok's works, so when the students played music from 'For Children', 'Romanian Folk Dances', Bartok Suite Op. 14 he could bring out that elusive element. Suzuki Multi-Piano Course, Cambridge UK Stephen Power Students presented certain works for piano, such as the 'Romanian Folk Dances', which are also arranged with violin or viola, one day after the other so that teachers could draw their own conclusions from the juxtaposition, and live strongly in the Hungarian music for a while. Four days were mainly spent watch- ing the 3 piano unison preparation and performance of Book 1 and 2 repertoire led by Bruce Anderson, Piano Teacher Trainer, USA. He also spent time answering questions in teacher only sessions. 4-piano is Suzuki Method™ in Action Elio Galvagno something we have been doing since 1991, so three was a rarity. Observation of the concerts showed the outcome of the work on composition (led by rising star, composer Charlotte Bray), with student composition workshopped and then performed by pupils and staff together, including a world premier from Charlotte Bray, very sweetly presented alongside the student world premiers. A taster of figured bass work was also on show, and the course ended with the Suzuki multi-piano concert, and chamber music by Liszt, Bartok, & Kurtag, with the concert dedicated to Kurtag in his 90th year. M y work for the International Su- zuki Association Guitar Commit- tee gave me the opportunity to learn more about the pedagogical - didactic approaches of different continents. In particular, it aroused my interest in a course that the Suzuki Association of Americas offers to all teachers called Suzuki Principles in Action (SPA) What I like about this course is that it encompasses all Suzuki instruments and offers each participant the opportunity to propose and present a written report, a video or live presentation of a given problem and its effective so- lution: hence the title ‘Suzuki Princi- ples in Action’. In addition, this course appeals to a key element of my Suzuki teaching experience in that I have always learned a lot from other instruments. So the idea of a Suzuki Method™ in Action course for the ESA region was born, and it has become a regular Con- tinuous Professional Development Course in the ESA Calendar. Suzuki Method™ in Action is a course designed to help teachers incorporate Dr. Suzuki’s principles effectively in their teaching and bears fruit for all partici- pants. The course focuses on how to teach, not what to teach, and to allow for the shar- ing of ideas among all instrument areas. It is based on Dr. Suzuki’s belief that knowledge is an important first step, but “knowledge plus 10,000 times” is what produces ability. This important princi- ple, which teachers frequently explain to their students, applies equally to the art of teaching. The inspiration for this course came from a need, identified by both Teacher Train- ers and Teachers to deal with the chal- lenges of implementing the knowledge gained from workshops and courses into the reality of day-to-day studio teaching. Composer Graham Fitkin working with students from Cambridge & Holland on music for 4 pianos