Ms. Woelker has been teaching strings for fifteen years. As a certified Suzuki teacher since 2006 (School for Strings, NYC), she teaches both Suzuki and traditional methods to students ranging in age from children two years old to adults. Ms. Woelker structures lessons for the individual needs of each student with the aim to create a nurturing and positive environment for learning a string instrument with clear and open communication with students and parents. Respect, encouragement, patience and sensitivity is vital to meet the needs of the student and flexibility to adjust for each lesson where building skills can be fun and challenging. The goal is for each student to reach a high level of playing always keeping the best interest of the student at heart.
In addition to teaching privately, Ms. Woelker teaches at East End Arts School and Music and Arts. She coaches chamber ensembles and conducts the string orchestras as the coordinator in the Perlman Music Program/East End Arts collaboration.
With a degree in Music from Stony Brook University, Ms. Woelker also attended Boston Conservatory where she studied with Jonathan Miller of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and CW Post College studying with Maureen Hynes of the Pierrot Consort. She participated in masterclasses with Colin Carr at SBU, and with Claude Kenneson at the Kato Havas School in Dorset, England. She also studied viola da gamba with Judith Davidoff and performed with the Merriweather Consort while at CW Post.
Ms. Woelker performs regularly with the Cottage Trio in New York and Massachusetts; Basically Baroque; and with the Hidden City Orchestra, performing in Perugia, Italy, at the Suono Sacro, the Sacred Sound Music Festival in Assisi, Italy and the Rites Of Spring Music Fest at the Custer Observatory in Southold, NY.
The main concern for parents should be to bring up their children as noble human beings. That is sufficient. If this is not their greatest hope, in the end the child may take a road contrary to their expectations. Children can play very well. We must try to make them splendid in mind and heart also.
Suzuki based his approach on the belief that “Musical ability is not an inborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properly trained can develop musical ability, just as all children develop the ability to speak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited.”