The Golandsky Institute

At the age of 35, despite world-class teachers and a successful career as a violinist, I found myself in a predicament; my playing felt limited and I was groping for answers I could not seem to find. The result was solutions more like a patchwork of guesses that were far from reliable. Many colleagues seemed to be in a similar spot or worse, were starting to feel pain and discomfort from previously reliable technique. By contrast, I had seen my duo partner who had suffered a severe piano injury, retrain to a stunning level of virtuosity and musicianship under the guidance of Edna Golandsky and the Taubman Approach. I went to a lesson with him and intrigued by what I saw, started having lessons with Edna Golandsky: Violin lessons from a pianist. I immediately realized that here was an approach that could identify and itemize each separate physical movement that goes into playing, how these movements interact and how the physical motions go directly into music making of the highest order. Furthermore, through the Golandsky Institute, here also was a pedagogy so immaculately developed, that there was a clarity of communication beyond anything I had ever experienced before. For the past two years, Edna Golandsky and I have been translating this approach onto the violin and now with her guidance I am using this approach in all aspects of my teaching from beginner groups, up to my graduate students.