Interview With Professor Monique Mead

Q: What first drew you to sound healing, and how did that differ from your classical training?

Monique Mead:
I was performing in Mexico at a spa and resort called Rancho La Puerta. As a classical violinist, you’re naturally pretty high strung. Your mind is often busy with performance, perfection, and other stressful thoughts, That afternoon I went to my first sound bath. I lay on the floor while someone played these large quartz singing bowls, and I noticed the sound just took over the thoughts in my mind and wiped them completely clear.

I lost track of time. What felt like ten minutes was actually an hour. I came out relaxed and free, like my brain had been cleared. That made a huge impression. I started studying the effect of sound on the brain. Years later, when the pandemic hit, everyone around me was stressed--my students at Carnegie Mellon, my neighbors, people everywhere. That’s when I remembered the singing bowls, so with my U.S. government stimulus check, I bought my first set of singing bowls and began figuring out how to use them to ease stress.

Q: For someone new to it, what happens during one of your sound baths, what goes on in the mind and the body?

Monique Mead:
When you arrive at my studio, the first thing you encounter is the scent of aromatherapy with soothing lavender and eucalyptus. That immediately brings you into an awareness of your senses. You put your belongings away, take off your shoes, and lie down on very comfortable bean-bag loungers with a blanket and an eye pillow. People describe it as feeling cocooned, hugged, and safe.

I start by getting you into your body with gentle breathwork and a guided check-in with your senses: what you see, feel, hear, and awareness of any emotions, physical tension, and mental activity you’re carrying. We return to that at the end to notice what has shifted. I generally accompany the breathwork with drum or ocean-wave sounds to ease you into a flow.

Then I invite you to set an intention for the session. It could be peace of mind, letting go of a heavy emotion, or whatever you might need. From there, I begin playing the singing bowls in a sequence. First, grounding, helping you feel safe and present. Then I use rhythm and sound to dissolve your sense of time, guiding you inward. Our bodies naturally entrain—or sync up—with external rhythms, so an intentional combination of rhythm and frequencies can bring you down into theta or even delta brainwave state, which is where deep rest occurs and the body’s natural healing instinct kicks in.

My intention is to keep you there long enough for your nervous system to reset, so I play a longer soundscape that sustains a deeply relaxed state. At the end, I bring you back out, with gentle sounds that create a sense of expansion so that you ease out of it feeling open and light. Then we return to breath and awareness and a body scan to notice the shift before I close out with a final melody on the violin.

Q: Where does the violin fit into your sessions?

Monique Mead:
I often play Bach at the beginning or other music that feels grounding and secure. I’ll walk through the room as I play so people can feel the instrument’s vibration up close. That alone pulls them out of their heads and into what’s happening in the present moment.

At the end, I’ll play the violin again, often something familiar, even a pop song. That helps gently bring the mind to an alpha state: relaxed, lightly focused, ready to re-engage. The bowls and gongs work deeply on the body and nervous system; the violin touches the heart and helps bridge back to everyday awareness.

Q: Was there a moment when you realized music can transform not just individuals but an entire community?

Monique Mead:
During the pandemic, everyone seemed to be suffering from isolation and loneliness, and musicians were all home-bound because they had nowhere to perform. My neighbors happen to have large, flat lawns across from my porch, so we started a porch concert series to bring people together in a safe way. My students and other musicians would play, and people sat outside, distanced, and connected through the rhythms and melodies of the music—from classical to jazz to tango.

We started with only a few neighbors, but soon, the lawn filled up and we wound up offering concerts every weekend for 7 months. People even came with coats and hand warmers when it got cold—and we put out fire pits! The following year we did it again, and when the pandemic ended, people still insisted we continue, so now in 2025, our sixth year, we get anywhere between 150-250 on the lawn for any given concert. We don’t advertise and we don’t sell tickets; people just show up and bring their friends because they feel part of something special. It builds community in a world that still feels oddly disconnected.

Q: How do you support students dealing with anxiety, perfectionism, or burnout?

Monique Mead:
I’ve found that you can talk to people about stress management and that can be effective over time, but nothing compares with an immediate, direct experience of a calm and tranquil mind, and that’s what you can deliver in a sound bath! I find sound baths powerful because they’re neutral: the sound of singing bowls isn’t tied to any genre of music or previous associations that people might like or dislike. Since 2023, I’ve been conducting research on sound and stress and establishing student- and staff-run sound bath programs where students, faculty and staff can drop in weekly for 20–50 minutes. They lie down, their mental stress gets wiped clean, and they come out with immediate relaxation and the bandwidth of a fresh start. So far, these college sound baths have proven to be popular and effective at Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh, and now there’s demand from other universities in the U.S. and even Indonesia.

Q: What do people misunderstand about the emotional and mental life of classical musicians?

Monique Mead:
People often say, “It must be wonderful to work at something you love,” and it is, but being a professional musician is also relentlessly demanding. There’s constant performance stress; you never really have weekends off because that’s when you typically perform, and you have to keep the daily discipline of practicing to stay in top performance shape—it’s like being a professional athlete.

And orchestral life is uniquely stressful--I’ve heard that it’s considered the second most stressful job after air-traffic controller! Contributing factors are that you have no personal space; someone sits right next to you; any mistake you make is immediately noticed; there's no agency over what you play or even what you wear; and on top of that, you have limited freedom of expression because those decisions are largely made by the conductor. While all of that translates into beautiful music, those stressors add up!

Q: Has there been a time when music helped you through grief, fear, or total overwhelm?

Monique Mead:
Absolutely. Around 2018, everything converged: divorce, a move, and two teenagers to care for as a single mom. In the midst of that I was asked to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in 2019, one of the hardest concertos in the violin repertoire. I had always dreamed of playing that concerto at age 50, thinking I’d be "mature enough” by then, and here I was--almost 50 and feeling like I could barely survive!

Practicing felt impossible with so much chaos, and I nearly gave up on learning the concerto. But at the moment of quitting, I had this inner conversation where I felt Beethoven saying to me, “If I could write this music as a deaf person, maybe you can figure out a way to play it.” And suddenly the truth emerged that for me, this concerto was about overcoming adversity and making peace with it. Practicing became my lifeline, a source of beauty and clarity that helped me manage everything else.

Right after my 50th birthday, I got on stage and performed this glorious concerto—a testament to the indomitable human spirit that lived in Beethoven and lives in each of us. After climbing that mountain, it occurred to me that perhaps the message of this music might be able to help others, and so I launched “Beethoven in the Face of Adversity,” offering 50 performances in 250 days of the Beethoven Concerto to anyone facing hardship, physical or mental health challenges, trauma, or any other type of adversity. Immediately, the requests started coming in starting with survivors of the recent shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Most of these performances were accompanied on the piano by my 15-yr. old son Tino. Everywhere we went, we spoke to the people and collected their stories, hearing what keeps them going through their challenges.

On Beethoven’s birthday in 2019, I played the culminating performance with the Edgewood Symphony at Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh as a triumph over adversity and displayed the stories of the people I visited. That experience changed me.

Just 2 months later in 2020, when the music world planned to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th, the pandemic hit and all the concert stages went silent, we all went “deaf” together, and global adversity hit. This was the final catalyst for me to step fully into dedicating my life to provide healing through music and sound.

Monique Mead

Monique Mead has been a lifelong advocate for the healing power of music. Her career as a professional violinist spans three decades performing on major international stages throughout North America and Europe. This artistic excellence infuses her Sound Healing practice, trainings, and research. 

As Teaching Professor and Director of Music Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Monique has created the first university course in sound healing, established a student-run sound bath program at CMU and most recently trained medical students at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) who founded a sound bath program to help their peers better manage stress.

In 2025 she will launch a CMU course called Sonic Innovation: AI, Sound Healing, and Entrepreneurial Solutions for Global Wellness. In a collaboration with behavioral health researches at Pitt, Monique developed a sound bath protocol and conducted a 2024 study on 240+ participants at CMU to discover how it affects mood and stress. Results showed a 70% decrease in stress and an 80% increase in ability to relax and focus after one session.

For her groundbreaking work in this field, she was awarded a grant from the American College Health Association in 2024 and recently presented her research at the Global Arts Conference in April 2025. In 2021, Monique opened a sound healing studio at the Awareness & Wellness Center, a mental health practice in Pittsburgh, where she provides a various sound healing experiences and a practitioner certification program. To better train others, she invented a notation system called SonicScore to map soundscapes, and currently has a sound bath training app under development to facilitate remote training and make the sounds of singing bowls more accessible.

Monique’s cutting-edge research on sound therapy, evidence-based training, large-scale performances, and passion for peace have captured local and international attention. In 2025, Monique staged the first Mega Surround Sound Bath with 20 practitioners and 60+ singing bowls encircling participants lying on the pews of Heinz Chapel in Pittsburgh, as featured in a front-page article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, NPR, CBS, and the Sounds Heal podcast.

A lover of nature, yoga, and organic cuisine, Monique enjoys directing an annual music festival at Rancho La Puerta, a premiere wellness resort in Mexico, where she first discovered sound healing. She invites you to explore the timeless world of sound and the transformative power of deep listening.

Chloé Kiffer

Franco-American violinist Chloé Kiffer has been praised by The New York Times for her “pure and beautiful tone” and by The Greenwich Sentinel as “a star in every sense: performance, exquisite technique, and beauty.”

She has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia, performing in prestigious venues such as the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Salle Cortot in Paris, Beethoven Hall in Bonn, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Hall, the Tel Aviv Opera, Beijing National Center, Shanghai Oriental Hall, and Lincoln Center. In 2015, she made her Carnegie Hall debut in Stern Auditorium with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

Kiffer is on the violin and chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and previously served as an assistant professor of violin at the University of North Texas. Her students have won prizes in national and international competitions, and she is in demand worldwide as a guest teacher and festival faculty member. Recent appearances include the Heifetz International Music Institute, MusicFest Perugia (Italy), Artists of Korea (Seoul), MusicAlps (France), Kaufman MusicFest (New York), Chamber Music International (Dallas), Texas Chamber Music Institute, and the Paris International Music Academy.

A laureate of the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation, Kiffer studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris before completing postgraduate degrees at the Manhattan School of Music under Patinka Kopec and Pinchas Zukerman, followed by a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University.

In 2019, she released an album of Ravel’s violin sonatas with her husband, pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine, on the Steinway & Sons label. She performs on a violin crafted for her in 2023 by Brooklyn luthier Samuel Zygmuntowicz.

Interview with Dr. Chloé Kiffer

Q: You’ve performed all over the world and trained extensively. How has your relationship with the violin changed through personal adversity?
The violin has been with me for as long as I can remember, through both joyful and difficult times. In moments of celebration, it became a way to share energy and joy with others. In harder seasons, it was a companion, helping me express pain while also carrying me forward. Those experiences deepened my relationship with the instrument; it’s no longer just about performing, but about living with it day to day. I often remind my students that the violin can be more than an instrument. It can become a partner through every stage of life.

Q: What role does emotion play in technique when you’re teaching? Can technical discipline and vulnerability really go hand in hand?
A strong technical foundation is what gives you the freedom to let emotion take over. In practice, I encourage my students to approach technique with a clear plan: focusing on bow pressure, bow division, contact point, vibrato, and all the other tools that shape sound. These elements are the framework that makes expression possible. In the practice room, it’s “technique first, emotion second.” But on stage, the two must work together. Once the basics are secure, technique becomes almost invisible, allowing students to take risks, shape phrases with intention, and let their personalities shine through.

Q: How do you help students find joy or meaning again in their playing after they’ve hit a plateau or gone through something hard?
Teachers who see their students weekly or biweekly often notice shifts in their state of mind sooner than the students realize. When I sense that someone is feeling disconnected or stuck, my role is to redirect their practice in ways that reawaken curiosity. If the brain repeats the same patterns too long, it becomes bored and unchallenged. Variety is essential. That might mean experimenting with reverse bowings, new rhythms, or adding slurs to familiar passages. In lessons, it might mean creating opportunities to perform for peers in studio class, where feedback and inspiration can spark new motivation. By changing the approach and introducing fresh challenges, students often rediscover both progress and joy in their playing.

Q: Can music be healing even if it’s not formally called “music therapy”?
Absolutely. Music doesn’t need the label of “therapy” to be healing, it has a way of reaching us directly, whether we’re playing, listening, or sharing it with others. I’ve seen students arrive at a lesson stressed or overwhelmed, and by the end, simply through making music, their entire energy has shifted. The same has been true for me in moments when I’ve needed calm or clarity, music has provided it. Healing can happen in those everyday encounters with music, without any formal structure at all.

Q: Do you think classical music still has the same emotional power in an age of digital overload and emotional numbness?
Absolutely, perhaps even more so today. In a world of scrolling and constant background noise, classical music offers the chance to pause, listen deeply, and truly feel. It reminds us to use emotion and connection in the rush of daily life.

Dr. Timothy Yip

With a comprehensive background as a pedagogue, Dr. Timothy Yip has dedicated many years to instructing students at all levels. Before moving to New York, he had taught violin in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade and has provided coaching and adjudication for regional student orchestras. Timothy’s expertise has contributed to the success of numerous students, including top-place winners in both regional and national competitions. Additionally, Timothy has been adjudicated in New York for competitions hosted by MTNA and the Crane School of Music.

In his pursuit of a well-rounded skill set, Timothy ventured into the field of business and entrepreneurship. He pursued business studies at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, San Jose State University (where he earned his MBA), and Harvard Business School Online. His diverse experience includes establishing an award-winning private studio, assuming administrative responsibilities at the Division of Diversity at UW-Madison, managing operations of youth symphonies in the Bay Area, leading teams in the software development space, and playing a key role in the launch and support of multiple top-grossing mobile applications.

He has been the recipient of the NAMM show faculty fellowship and an Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentorship at SUNY Potsdam.

Timothy attended UCLA, UW-Madison, Indiana University (where he served as a teaching assistant to Mimi Zweig), and the St. Petersburg Conservatory. To learn more about Timothy, please visit timyipviolin.com.

Interview with Dr. Timothy Yip

Q: You’ve worked with young musicians at many stages of their development. How

has your own relationship with the violin—and with teaching—been shaped by

moments of personal adversity?

Personal adversity plays a role in teaching because I can draw examples from my own

struggles and failures to show students that I, too, was once in their shoes. I struggled

with similar issues and can suggest potential paths forward for them to consider.

Another point is that learning violin involves adversity in the form of stress and criticism.

There were points in my development that I learned the most about playing the violin and

it was under stressful situations (performance, training abroad, criticism, or a bad lesson,

or performance). These struggle points result in growth when taken with a growth

mindset.

I will concede, however, that my struggles have been minimal compared to most of the

world. I have always had my basic needs met.

When I teach, I try to help students frame adversity in a more positive way so that they

are focused of forward motion and growth.

If you want to learn music for the long term, adversity is inevitable. I try not to dampen

my students’ spirits by focusing on it, but I do prepare them to expect and overcome

challenges. That said, most of the process of learning music can be positive overall, and I

aim to highlight those positive aspects. In fact, I would conclude that learning music is

cyclical, with natural periods of ups and downs. This rhythm is part of what makes it

interesting, since we as humans often become acclimated to comfortable times and can

even grow bored without new challenges.

Q: When working with children, emotions often show up very quickly in their

playing. How do you balance nurturing their feelings with helping them build solid

technical foundations?

When I first started teaching, I integrated a lot expressive playing into my teaching. I

think it is good to nurture the expressive elements for children so they associate playing

music with conveying feelings.

But I found that if a student has strong technical foundations, they can control their

instrument better and express themselves with more sound colors. The use of imagination

and different colors are hallmarks of a great artist. And further, if they have good

technique, they can progress faster and achieve better results in performance and

auditions, which are typical goals for kids and parents.

I teach technical skills that support expressive playing, such as bow control, looseness,

vibrato, and phrasing, but I spend less time discussing abstract feelings than in my first

year of teaching. The longer I teach, the more I have simplified the emotional

descriptions of playing. I keep things simple.

I’m not sure if you were referring to a child’s emotions during a lesson—such as how

they feel about their playing, like crying or showing disappointment. If a child expresses

emotions like frustration or disappointment during a lesson, I make an effort to validate

their feelings.

I’ll give an example; if a student sighs out of frustration, I currently validate their feelings

(“I hear you sighing, you seem frustrated”), whereas when I first started teaching, I

didn’t. In fact, there was a lesson where a 10 year old student sighed repeatedly, likely

due to frustration not just with violin but with school and other things, and at the end of

the lesson, I told him not to return because I didn’t like the sighing. I had taught this

student for probably 2-3 years. I now see that as a lack of maturity in handling kids and I

used an excuse for myself of only teaching “serious” students. Today, I would try to

lighten the mood or change the activity, and reassure the student that it’s okay to feel

frustrated and that we’ll keep working on it next time.

On this topic, it is more important for most kids to develop the ability to communicate

their emotions with a strong emotional quotient (EQ) than it is for them to express

emotions through music. I might bring that up once in a while, however, it is not my

primary role to teach verbal communication skills as their violin teacher.

On a final note, building a solid technical foundation can be separate from emotions.

While technique is ultimately used to convey musical expression, you can develop

strokes and instrument control through practice without emotional involvement. But the

value would be in applying your skill to create expressive playing.

Q: Has there been a moment when music helped you through sadness, fear, or a

challenging period—and does that experience influence how you guide your

students?

Yes, but not how you might think. I faced a challenging period, and songs from Disney’s

Zootopia (Try Everything) and Moana (How Far I’ll Go) helped to motivated me. I

listened to them and sang along and they motivated me.

When students go through challenging times, I encourage them to focus on playing their

instrument. I also tell them to practice violin “for fun” and not focus on the stressful

aspects of playing music. From my understanding of psychology (I’m currently taking a

Udemy class on DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy), people can manage stress by

engaging in activities such as exercise or puzzles to help shift their focus away from

stressors.

Q: With young players, do you think musical growth requires emotional connection,

or is it something that develops naturally over time?

A child’s understanding of their own emotions, as well as their ability to interpret the

emotions of others, develops naturally over time as part of general human growth. As a

student matures, that emotional depth will eventually find its way into their playing,

provided they have the technical abilities to express it.

If I were teaching young students, I might introduce some emotional vocabulary or

discuss how a piece feels in simple terms. However, I believe parents primarily hire a

violin teacher to focus on the instrument, not to teach emotional fluency. But in the area

of music, the student and I could experiment with ways of playing a piece and describing

what kids of emotions it might evoke in themselves and the listener.

Q: Many children feel anxious, frustrated, or discouraged when learning an

instrument. How do you support a student who is overwhelmed, perfectionistic, or

afraid of making mistakes?

Unlike some approaches, I do not believe in forcing children to play music; instead, I

prioritize long-term enjoyment and satisfaction. When a student feels overwhelmed, I

may adjust the pace of the lessons or assign new repertoire. We would discuss ways to

adjust the student’s activities so that it is less overwhelming. If this is a consistent source

of stress for a child, maybe they are better off playing something else less rigorous or

perhaps they should learn the instrument in a more casual way.

For students facing high-pressure situations like competitions, I frame stress as a positive

challenge; an event to help them achieve a result they can be proud of. My goal is to

balance the demands of performance with the student's general well-being, even if that

means being a runner up and not a top prize winner. So for some, it might be the case that

we continue on a stressful path but navigate it in a balanced way.

To support perfectionistic students or those afraid of making mistakes, I focus on

broadening their definition of success. I encourage them to prioritize audience

connection, public service, and expression rather than just perfect execution.

I also teach students that mistakes are valuable information that helps us adjust and

improve. There is a quote from our teacher Mimi Zweig that is something like “Mistakes

are information.” That to me provides a good frame for most people to work on their

playing.

Finally, I set realistic expectations by reminding kids that there is always a reasonable

margin for error in any performance. Unless one is a full-time professional, it is

unrealistic to expect perfection when playing.

Q: What do you think people often misunderstand about the emotional world of

young musicians—the pressures they feel, or the expectations placed on them?

In some cases, teachers fail to validate a student's stress because they view the experience

(such as a recital) through the lens of their own professional experience. While a teacher

may find these things manageable, it is important to remember that they are often a big

event to a student.

There are two primary ways to approach this dynamic. One is the "master-student"

model, where a teacher imposes their specific technique and worldview for the student to

absorb. The other is a more empathetic approach, where the teacher attempts to see the

experience through the student's eyes. I believe effective teaching requires a careful

balance between these two. While a teacher must provide the skills the student seeks,

they must also meet the student within their own inner world.

It is also vital to remind young musicians that they have agency. Many feel an immense

pressure to perform, but participating in a recital or even continuing with an instrument is

rarely mandatory. I believe it is important to let students know they have choices: they

can defer a performance, take a break, or even decide to stop playing completely.

Finally, a lot of the pressures on young musicians are created by parents and teachers. If

you were so inclined, you can enjoy music as a passionate amateur and circumvent high

pressure and high expectation music environments.

Q: When a student hits a plateau, loses motivation, or is going through something

difficult at home or school, how do you help them rediscover joy and meaning in

their practice?

While I am not a therapist, I can encourage students to view practicing as a productive

and enjoyable activity that exists outside their personal struggles. Losing motivation is a

normal part of the musical journey, so I often suggest learning pieces they specifically

enjoy and maintaining some level of practice, even if it is reduced for a time. If playing

music helps to regulate a student's emotions, they should certainly play more, but if it

causes chronic stress, they might be better served by taking a break.

I am at a point in my career where I do not feel the need to chain a student to lessons out

of fear of losing income. If a student is facing significant personal challenges, they might

be better served by spending their time addressing those issues directly and pause lessons.

In such cases, I advise them to seek professional help or speak with a school counselor. I

do not believe it is always necessary or helpful for a student to soothe themselves through

musical practice. As I mentioned earlier for prompt 3, for myself, I find it more soothing

to listen to music.

When a technical plateau occurs, I examine both my teaching methods and the student's

practice habits. Often, these stalls result from insufficient practice volume or a disconnect

between my feedback and their understanding. At times, the issue may be that my own

teaching lacks the necessary creativity or technical variety to move them forward. It

could also be the case the student needs a break to recover physically and mentally. For

amateur players, I suggest not worrying too much about plateauing, as there are many

pieces at various levels that can provide immense enjoyment. If you are taking lessons

with a good teacher, practicing well, and looking for ways to improve, improvement will

come little by little and progress is not linear.

Lastly, if a player has a performance upcoming, that is a good motivator to practice and

helps spur growth.

Q: In your experience, can playing music itself be healing for a child, even if it isn’t

framed as ‘therapy’?

As for as psychology goes, there are studies that mention how music is intertwined with

cognition. See This is Your Brain on Music by Levitin. Also, some research suggests that

music lowers stress levels, which aids in physical recovery. For this prompt, I would

recommend that you speak to a music therapist or psychologist.

Q: Children today grow up with constant digital stimulation. Do you feel classical

music still reaches them emotionally in the same way? How do you help them stay

present and connected?

My son enjoys Mozart’s variations on Twinkle Twinkle and other recognizable tunes like

Old MacDonald. He also is incredibly stimulated by popular toddler TV shows on

Youtube (Ms. Rachel, etc). This shows me that the patterns of classical music resonate

with my child, at least.

For older children, I recommend a balanced approach to digital life by limiting passive

stimulation. While video games can promote coordination when used in moderation, it is

important to be mindful of their addictive potential. There is a statistic suggesting that

10% of boys are susceptible to high levels of video game addiction, though I do not have

the source on hand. Interestingly, many games feature classical-inspired soundtracks,

proving that classical idioms still reach players emotionally in modern contexts. You can

now attend concerts my major symphonies playing arrangements of pieces from the

games Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy, and Stardew Valley. So in my opinion, classical

music is adapting to reach children and young adults based on their experiences.

I have observed many of my student connect with social media classical music

influencers, like Two-Set (before their “retirement”) and others, which is fitting for their

generation. However, for old school lovers of classical music, this represents a departure

from enjoying broader musical experiences, as social media posts on classical music are

mostly snapshots of viral moments; you’ll swipe through the most dynamic segments of a

performance, instrument fails, or gamification of techniques. For example, some viral

videos are analysis of which player plays two notes of a shift “better” in the Sibelius

Concerto which is missing the point of the performances.

As digital culture evolves, we may see future technologies like AI offer entirely new

ways to interact with music. Ideally, these will be enriching to the human experience and

allow us to enjoy the full spectrum of beauty that classical music offers rather than a

reduction of the artform.

Q: If you see music as a kind of emotional or expressive language for young players,

what’s the ‘phrase’ or idea you hope every child carries with them from your

teaching?

I hope children leave my teaching with positive experiences and an appreciation for

music and healthy relationships. I also hope they see an example of kindness and good

character in our interactions and carry some of that forward to others.