EMU CAPACITY BUILDING SEMINAR

“GROUP PEDAGOGY & COLLABORATION WITH SCHOOLS”

Grand Hotel Reykjavík, Iceland 27-28 October 2017

Biographies

Yvonne Frye

Yvonne Frye began learning the violin at the age of six. As a tertiary student, she studied with Prof. Helge Slaatto and Mr John Lambos at the Hoschschule für Musik, Detmold, graduating with a Diploma of Violin Pedagogy. She continued her musical studies at the Kärtner Landeskonservatorium in Klagenfurt, Austria in the violin class of Prof. Helfried Fister, who was her most influential and important teacher.

In 1996 she met Géza und Csaba Szilvay. Working closely with Géza Szilvay, Yvonne translated and edited the handbook for teachers, and other Colourstrings literature into German.

In 2007 Géza Szilvay invited Yvonne to teach at the East-Helsinki-Music-Institute. Since then she is leading her own violin class.

Since 2009 she is teaching the Violin Pedagogy at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

As a lecturer Yvonne is giving Colourstrings seminars around the world: Münster Musikhochschule, ESTA Germany, ESTA Austria, Sibelius Academy Helsinki, Bundesakademie Trossingen, Hochschule für Musik Hans Eisler Berlin, Chile (Foji), South Africa, Australia, Poland (Censa) , Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Denmark etc.

In addition she is teaching chamber music for young musicians and gives masterclasses for young violinists.

Gerhard Müller

Gerhard Müller studied violin and pedagogy at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe (Germany), later on cultural management in Cologne. He has been working as a violinist in German orchestras and renowned period music ensembles. Since 2001 he is member of the Rasumowsky Quartet, that he had been touring with through Europe and whose recordings of all Shostakovitch string quartets received international acclaim. 2009 he was elected Director of Conservatory Bern, Switzerland. In that time Conservatory Bern was awarded several times for innovative ideas in music pedagogy.

Madeleine Casson

Madeleine Casson is Education Director at Charanga, the UK’s leading provider of music education technology and digital resources for schools. Madeleine is responsible for all areas of teaching and learning and the company’s extensive CPD & Training programme. Madeleine also works nationally and internationally as a presenter, workshop leader, music advisor, teacher and writer both on a freelance basis and for ABRSM. Before Charanga, Madeleine spent many years teaching in schools and leading Somerset Music Service before being appointed as Course Leader & Academic Lead for Trinity College London. Madeleine strongly believes in the positive benefits that music has on our lives and is an advocate for access to exciting and creative music making for everyone.

Pirkko Simojoki

As a five year old, Pirkko Simojoki started playing violin under the mentorship of Géza Szilvay. At fourteen she changed her instrument into a viola and furthered her studies in the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki by completing her degree with excellent grades in 1996. She then studied at the Rubin Academy of Tel Aviv. From 1993 to 1996 Simojoki was playing in the Finnish National Opera orchestra.

Simojoki has been a lecturer of viola in the music schools of Itä-Helsinki as well as Espoo on top of which she teaches viola and pedagogy at the Sibelius Academy and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. Simojoki was the vice headmaster of Itä-Helsinki music school from 2008 to 2012. Additionally she has also acted as the conductor of the Helsinki children’s and young people’s string orchestra.

Simojoki regularly gives additional training and master classes to teachers in Finland and beyond.

Sigurður Halldórsson

Sigurður Halldórsson (IS) studied music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where his main subjects were cello, chamber music and vocal studies where he studied with Raphael Sommer and Arthur Reckless. Then he entered the innovative programme Performance and Communication Skills, directed by Peter Renshaw and Peter Wiegold, which was the beginning of a new pedagogical approach to higher education in music – and a movement that had a big impact in introducing educational and participatory activities for audiences into the world of professional orchestras, theatres, operas and concert halls. This led for example to his participation in the development of the NAIP European Master of music (New Audiences and Innovative Practice), now offered in Iceland, the Netherlands and Sweden, for which he is now professor, programme director at the Iceland Academy of the Arts where he also directs the choir and teaches period performance, improvisation and creative-collaborative practices.

Sigurður is active in early music, contemporary and improvised music, mostly with CAPUT, Voces Thules, Camerarctica and his newly founded Early Music Ensemble, Symphonia Angelica. Sigurður played with Duch violinist and period music pioneer Jaap Schröder for over 20 years, both in the Skálholt Bach Consort and Skálholt Quartet which has toured extensively across Europe and America and made numerous recordings. He has been active as soloist for over thirty years, both with orchestras and alone. With Voces Thules he has performed in major festivals such as the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Bergen Festival and the Reykjavik Arts Festival where he has also regularly performed with several of his other ensembles. Sigurður held the position of an artistic director of Skálholt Summer Concerts in Iceland from 2004 to 2014. He was board member of the Nordic Early Music Federation from 2013 to 2017.

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