I have been fascinated by the act of communion known as teaching since I was a teenager, even before I started practising the violin in any serious way.  My first teaching job was at a school in Glasgow, Scotland, while I was studying music, philosophy and drama at the university there. The children at the school were poor, wild, and talented, and I probably learned more about social deprivation than they did about the violin. The urge to teach was to follow me wherever my studies took me: to London, Germany and to Israel, where I spent six wonderful years totally absorbed in the intensive teaching of talented children. Perhaps that was the most creative chapter of my life, with many of my pupils going on to become professional musicians.

Teaching children is a delicate art, for one has to be alert to the ever-changing patterns and moods of their lives, knowing how to engage, encourage, humour, and inspire them. It taught me how to read the emerging personality of each individual, and I learned that teaching the violin is as much about nurturing the inner life of each pupil as about developing instrumental technique: unless these two aspects develop in harmony there will always be a disconnect between the person and the music they make.

A violin teacher’s first steps can be compared to making experiments on live humans! I was fortunate to be able to place myself under the guidance of Prof. Felix Andreievsky, who had previously taught at the Central Music School in Moscow, and who generously shared his knowledge of pedagogy with me over a period of two years.

After some forty years of intense performing activity in the world of Baroque music, during which time I taught only intermittently, I have returned to teaching as a principal occupation. Teaching the Baroque violin and viola involves a balance between instrumental and multi-stylistic work that each student needs in differing proportions, according to his or her level and experience. Such work is quite different from teaching the ‘modern’ violin, but the basic principal of helping each student to discover his or her unique voice is the same.