Faculty

Patricia Ruettimann

Hannah Biss

Heather studied Viola and French Horn at the Royal Academy of Music and following a year`s teaching qualification got a job in Birmingham where she taught Suzuki Method in city schools for many years.

Heather started studying to be a Suzuki teacher in London with British Suzuki shortly after starting her job in Birmingham with the music service and having completed the Suzuki teacher training course she was awarded a scholarship and travelled to Japan to study with Dr Suzuki for three months.

Back in Birmingham she taught Suzuki Method in city schools for many years -becoming an Advanced Skills Teacher and then Head of Ensembles. She managed staff and ran events for seventy orchestras, ensembles, bands and groups both non auditioned and auditioned. Latterly Heather was fortunate enough to become Deputy Head of the music service in Birmingham.

During this time as a Suzuki teacher, Heather was appointed a Teacher Trainer and has, for many years, directed the British Suzuki Violin Teacher Training course in the Midlands. She is also working at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire delivering a Suzuki pedagogy program for string students and is encouraged to see that a number of these young people are considering joining a training course in the future.

Heather has a thriving private teaching studio and loves every aspect of being a Suzuki teacher and teacher trainer and hopes she can pass on the happiness and pleasure that music and teaching gives her every day…

Mysie Ferguson graduated from the Royal Scottish academy of Music & Drama and embarked on her professional career as a violist with the Academy of the BBC. After gaining much valuable experience and working with many eminent conductors, she left to take up a position which she was to hold for 14 years with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. As violist with this orchestra she took part in numerous recordings for both radio and TV and undertook many foreign tours including concert tours to Hong Kong, Poland and the USA and Canada as well as regular appearances at the London Promenade series.

Since 2012 Mysie has been director of the Suzuki Viola Teacher Training programme in Madrid. She has also run viola conversion courses in Ireland, England; Iceland and Spain and is in demand as teacher; teacher trainer and examiner all across Europe. In 2013 she was very honoured to teach at the 14th Suzuki World Convention in Matsumoto, Japan.

Mysie continues to run her own private teaching practice in Edinburgh where she teaches both violin and viola players of all ages. She is also the mother of two Suzuki taught children and now grandmother of one.

Sam Knops studied Viola and Chamber Music at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, Belgium,  with Leo De Neve. 

After his Masters Degree, he played in the major orchestras of Belgium, including La Monnaie, Antwerp Symhonic Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonics, Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen,  and Royal Flemish Opera.

Sam took his Suzuki training with Ilona Telmanyi in Denmark, gaining level 5 for viola in 2013. He teaches the viola group ‘Con Calore’,  based in Zottegem, Belgium, who hosted the recent European Suzuki Viola Gathering in Ostende in October 2022.

Canada native Margaret Parkin began her musical studies as a Suzuki violin student with Richard Lawrence at the age of 4. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from Queen's University (ON) and a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from McGill University where she studied under the direction of Iwan Edwards and John Baboukis. She is an ESA graduate teacher for both violin and viola, chair of the BSMA Events Committee, an ESA Violin Teacher Trainer, Director of BSMA Violin Teacher Training in London, and a member of the ESA Violin Committee.

Margaret is the director of the Oxford Suzuki String Group where she maintains a private studio of violin and viola students. She has previously served as director of the Exeter Suzuki String Group, as a member of faculty at the Suzuki String School of Guelph (ON), and director of the Guelph Youth Music Centre String Orchestras. She is a regular guest clinician, conductor, and speaker at workshops and institutes in Canada, the UK, and Europe. Her most rewarding role is that of Suzuki parent to her teenage son.

Liivi Arder

Edward Cohen is Manager of the School of Music and Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), and pianist for the choruses of the RSNO. He performs regularly with leading musicians in major venues and has been broadcast internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, including at the BBC Proms. He also serves as CEO of the Scottish International Piano Competition.

Edward has worked closely as a rehearsal pianist with many of the world's foremost conductors, including Sir Andrew Davis, Tan Dun, Thomas Søndergård, Gustavo Dudamel, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. In concert, he has performed under Ryan Bancroft, Pierre Boulez, and Neeme Järvi, amongst others, with concerto performances spanning Beethoven, de Falla, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Strauss.

A prize-winning first-class graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, he holds two Master's degrees with distinction from the RCS, where he received top awards in both solo and chamber music performance, including the prestigious Governors' Recital Prize.

Orchestra - Margaret Parkin