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Our Teachers
Below is a list of all Lauderdale Suzuki Group teachers. To see a short biography please click on a teachers name. If you would like to get in touch with an individual teacher please contact the administrator who will forward on your message.
Violin Teachers
- Jane Afia (Lauderdale Director)
- Alison Apley
- Claudio Forcada
- Sharron Beamer
- Elisabeth Waterhouse
- Cara Vella
Musicianship Teachers
Accompanists
Jane Afia
Jane has been teaching the violin at the Lauderdale Suzuki group since the 1980s. In 1976 Elisabeth Waterhouse (the founder of the Lauderdale group) invited Jane to come and teach on one of the first ever Suzuki summer music camps in the heart of Wales, and ever since then they have worked together. Jane recalls: “In 1976 I had graduated from the Royal College of Music but knew nothing about Suzuki as there was so very little Suzuki teaching in England. I went to the camp to teach the more advanced children. I have a vivid memory of a group of children playing Perpetual Motion outside and walking around. When they repeated the music with a decscant I was totally captivated by their ease of playing and their beautiful sound and at that moment I decided to learn all I could about how to teach my students the Suzuki way.”
Thirty years later she is now a qualified Suzuki teacher trainer. Her three children have all become professional musicians having been raised through the Suzuki method. Jane is the director of Lauderdale and is responsible for coordinating the programme and ensuring that the staff and pupils of the Lauderdale Suzuki school are happy and receiving an excellent musical education.
Alison Apley
Alison studied the violin at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and after graduating joined the BBC Training Orchestra in Bristol. On leaving the Training Orchestra she worked as a freelance musician and teacher in London and Scotland.
In 1980 Alison went to Japan to study with Dr. Suzuki where she graduated as a Suzuki violin teacher. This event changed her life as a teacher and she embraced Dr. Suzuki's method and philosophy wholeheartedly. On returning from Japan she assisted Felicity Lipman in running the National Suzuki Violin Teacher Training Course, and between 1989 and 2005 she was Course Director.
Alison joined the Lauderdale Suzuki Group as a teacher in the early 1990’s. She has enjoyed and valued working with the teachers and students in the Group.
Claudio Forcada
Claudio joined the London and Lauderdale Suzuki Groups in 2007, having moved from Spain to London. In Spain he taught the violin in conservatoires and schools of music between 1993 and 2006. In 2001 he was selected by the government of the province of Galicia to develop the syllabus of the highest music degree. From 2000 to 2003 he was director of “The Summer School” at the city of Oleiros. Between 2000 and 2004 Claudio was director of the Violin Pedagogy Seminary and in 2004 the International Music School, both of which were sponsored by the Spanish bank Caixa Galicia. Since 2004, Claudio has been Artistic director of The International Summer School of Music at Edartmus and in 2005 he was the deputy head at the Conservatorio Superior in La Coruña, Spain.
Claudio regularly gives and organizes lectures on violin pedagogy and instrumental teaching in England and abroad. At present he is developing a thesis in motor training and violin pedagogy at Birmingham City University, as well as performing in professional chamber music groups. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree and European Suzuki Association level one certification.
Sharron Beamer
Sharron was introduced to the Suzuki Method through her four children who started Suzuki violin lessons at their school. In 1978 she became a Suzuki teacher and was among the first intake of students to do the Suzuki teacher training offered by the BSI. In 1987-1988 she spent 6 months in Matsumoto, Japan studying with Dr.Suzuki himself. Dr.Suzuki called his method "Ability Development" and Sharron has always been inspired by his message that ability is not something one must be born with, but that it is something that everyone can develop. Her primary concern is to help her students to realize that they can develop ability, and to demonstrate how to go about it.
Elisabeth Waterhouse
Elisabeth Waterhouse learned the piano from the age of 5 and violin from the age of 12. She trained as a pianist at the Royal College of Music and carried on with her studies in Munich. She has ARCM diplomas in Piano, Viola and Violin and is also a qualified Alexander Technique teacher. Elisabeth married the bassoonist William Waterhouse and their 3 children have all become professional string players. In 1972 they lived in America for 8 months where her daughters had lessons from Hiroko Primrose, a Japanese violinist married to the famous violist William Primrose. She used Dr Suzuki’s method and repertoire and Elisabeth found the teaching inspirational. Back in London Elisabeth met Helen Brunner, who had also been inspired in America. Together they founded the London Suzuki Group in 1978 and shortly afterwards Elisabeth set up the Lauderdale Suzuki Group.
Today, over 30 years later, Elisabeth continues to enjoy teaching violin and viola and is a highly experienced accompanist. In 1973 Elisabeth organized her first 'Summer Music School'. This soon became an annual event and grew to two residential summer courses for string playing called Temple Dinsley Summer School (TDSS) and National Chamber Music Course (NCMC). Since 1985 both these courses have been held at a school near Hitchin and continue to enjoy huge popularity.
The Lauderdale group is extremely grateful for all Elisabeth's dedicated work. Hundreds and hundreds of children have benefitted from the musical groups and summer courses that she has founded. Thank you so much Elisabeth!
Cara Vella
Cara began Suzuki violin Lessons at the age of six with Elizabeth Waterhouse in North London, and also attended the Lauderdale Suzuki Group. In 1990 she was offered a scholarship place to the Purcell School of Music, where she studied violin and piano for six years as well as attending Trinity College of Music Junior dept on weekends. Following this, Cara continued varied music activities, including folk violin courses, recording and performing with a band, and travelling. She began the Suzuki teachers training program in 2004 - 2007 (qualified level 3) and became a member of the LSG in 2005. Cara is currently focused on teaching, both privately and in schools, including working with the Suzuki in Schools initiative.
Yuko Vinden
Born in Japan, Yuko studied for the B. Mus. degree at Hokkaido University graduating in 1981. She spent a further two years studying at the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary, where she gained the advanced diploma with distinction. Yuko subsequently settled in England and began her first teaching in Kodály Musicianship at the Guildhall School of Music Junior department from 1984-1987. Between 1991 and 2006 she was a lecturer in Kodály Musicianship at Trinity College of Music and she is a tutor for the British Kodály Academy. Yuko is also active as a piano teacher and accompanist at the Royal Masonic School for girls in Rickmansworth and St Martin's school in Bushey. She has also been a part time accompanist at the Purcell School.
Yuko has given various lectures and workshops on Kodály in England and Japan. She has also co-authored various books of material on Kodály for use in England and Japan.
Clare Clements
After gaining degrees in Music and English Literature at Melbourne University, Australian pianist Clare Clements came to the UK to study Accompaniment and Chamber Music at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. On completion of her Master’s degree, she joined the staff of the College, firstly as an accompanist and then, in 1997, as a Lecturer in the School of Keyboard Studies.
Clare’s varied performing career has included accompanying singers and instrumentalists in recitals and broadcasts throughout Australia, the UK and Ireland, and playing orchestral keyboard with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She has a keen interest in contemporary music and, with her group VAMOS!, has given world premieres at the Huddersfield and Ryedale Festivals and at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.
Since moving to London in 2000, Clare has continued to enjoy a busy freelance career as an accompanist and chamber musician. In addition, she is a Lecturer in the Music Department at Morley College, teaches piano and theory privately, and runs music and singing workshops in London and the Shetland Islands. Clare made her conducting debut in March 2005 with Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ and has conducted Verdi’s ‘Requiem,’ Mozart’s ‘Coronation Mass’ and Haydn’s ‘Creation’.
Clare is a Music examiner for Trinity Gulidhall
Patty Richards Armstrong
Patty was born in Cleveland, Ohio and began studying the piano at age 6. She received her Bachelor of Music from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio and her Master of Music degree and her Performance Certificate in Opera from Eastman School of Music. She was awarded the Francis Toye Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music in London. She has sung professionally with Glyndebourne and was in the original cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera".
While taking her daughter, Rachel, to Sue Harris's SUMICS, she met a very pro-Suzuki mother. Shortly after that Sharron Beamer kindly took on Rachel as a student. Patty realised that Suzuki was an amazingly universal way of teaching, inspiring and making music approachable to all. Meanwhile Patty took over Sue Harris's Baby Music Classes in Islington adding a bit of Kodaly and some American touches. Through attending musicianship classes with Rachel at Lauderdale, Patty realised that she could incorporate Sue Harris's Baby Music with what was being taught. With encouragement from Sharron Beamer and Jane Afia, Patty became an ancillary member of the Lauderdale Group.
Patty feels privileged to be a part of this association of wonderful teachers. Every week at Lauderdale she learns as much as she teaches. “Suzuki is AMAZING!”