Sharp Suzuki Strings
Online lessons are available only to currently enrolled students.
Sharp Suzuki Strings is a Suzuki violin and viola program under the direction of violinist Debra Terry. Based in Livonia, MI, Ms. Terry offers private and group lessons as prescribed by Dr. Shinichi Suzuki and the method he created in Matsumoto, Japan. For more information about the Suzuki method, please visit www.suzukiassociation.org
Ms. Terry began playing using the Suzuki method in 1980 through the guidance of her mother, Cheryl Terry, who is also a Suzuki teacher. She continued her studies with many other Suzuki teachers across Germany and America as well as various workshops and summer institutes around Europe, the United Kingdom, and the US. One of her main teachers in the Suzuki method years of learning was Dr. John Kendall. She also had some scattered lessons and group classes with Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, Alice Joy Lewis, and Susan Kempter.
Since she completed the books in 1992, she has studied privately with "traditional" teachers to include Maestro Abraham Chavez (former conductor of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra), Michael Goldman (former Associate Concertmaster of the EPSO and current Concertmaster of the Las Cruces Symphony in Las Cruces, NM), Dr. Walter Verdehr of the Verdeher Trio (Michigan State University), Andrew Jennings (University of Michigan), and Dr. Carmelo de los Santos (University of New Mexico). She has participated in master classes with Almita Vamos, Donald McInnes, Paul Kantor, Brian Lewis, Stephen Clapp, and Simon Fischer.
Ms. Terry began teaching in 2000 and began her formal Suzuki Teacher Training in 2001. For the past 7 years, Ms. Terry has worked alongside Susan Kempter in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the Suzuki Lab School program. This is an in-depth Suzuki teaching program dedicated to the long-term training of university students in the Suzuki method as well as giving these students a deeper understanding of other methods available to teachers and students. The program includes hands on teacher training in the group class setting as well as a mentorship program for the private lessons. Ms. Terry finished her own training through this program in the spring of 2010 with a Long-Term Teacher Training Certificate for Violin Books 1-10 and then became one of the mentors of the program until her recent move back to Michigan.
To see a full list of Teacher Training courses Ms. Terry has completed. please visit her teacher profile on the Suzuki Association website here.
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