CAROL PRESTON — SUZUKI VIOLIN

Carol Preston, has been a Suzuki Method teacher for over 35 years in Damariscotta and the Washington, D.C. area. She also taught public school music for 15 years. In addition to teaching, she is president of the Maine Suzuki Association, formerly served as board chair of the Suzuki Association of the Greater Washington Area, and is a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. As a performer, she has been concertmaster of the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra since 2002, was a mentor for Mozart Mentors Orchestra in Brunswick, and played with Maine Pro Musica. In the D.C. area, she was concertmaster of the McLean Orchestra for 14 years, was a member of the McBeth Quartet, and played all the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as a member of the Washington Savoyards orchestra. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from Concordia College (MN) and an MA in music from the University of Iowa, where she studied with Allen Ohmes of the Stradivari Quartet.

Learn more about Carol’s teaching philosophy

Describe your approach to teaching?

I teach using the Suzuki Method, where we specialize in starting lessons as early as age 3. It's very different from other ways of learning music because parents are heavily involved in lessons and home practice. Students listen to recordings of the music they will play and learn by rote at the beginning. After they can play with some fluency, they start learning to read music. I love this way of teaching, having discovered it in college. I got trained in it after graduate school and never looked back.

What drew you to MUSIC AND THE violin?

My mother was a cellist and taught strings in our local schools when I was a kid. I don't know why I decided to play violin other than we had my grandfather's violin in our house. And my piano teacher for one year became the strings teacher at my school, so I had to do that! Through high school I was in orchestra, band, and chorus but just kept up with violin (and a bit of cello) in college. My desire was always to teach private lessons.