Past Scholarship Recipients
In 2022, SAC was proud to provide scholarships to Gill Kuroiwa of Blackstone Studio, Mike Hyland, and others.
Gill Kuroiwa of Blackstone Studio
www.blackstonestudiollc.com
Hi, I'm Gill Kuroiwa, recipient of one of SAC's scholarships for 2022. In July I was able to attend my first Suzuki Institute where I completed my Cello Book 5 training thanks to the generosity of SAC.
Up until 2021, my experience as a student and teacher had been completely traditional so when the SAA made Suzuki training available online, I was able to satisfy my curiosity about the method and take a Book 1 class. Since then, I've
taken 6 courses and loved getting to know the Suzuki Method and Suzuki community. Having never completed in person training until this unit, my experience at Peaks to Plains Institute was a totally new one for me. I loved getting to watch a group of student cellists progress through the week day by day. When watching online observations, there are often gaps in time between taped lessons so getting to watch real-time progress was really exciting.
I'm thankful for an inspiring week of training by Blake Brasch and a tremendous amount of learning alongside a beautiful community of teachers, kids, and parents. My sincerest gratitude to SAC for this opportunity.
Mike Hyland
Littleton, CO
The summer of 2022 was my daughter Sagan's second year at Beaver Creek, and building on what we learned the first year we had an even better time. With Mom, Grammie Sue, and younger brother Simon in tow, we were able to spend lots of time in class and, more importantly to 5-year-old Sagan, more time in the pool! And the kids learned a new and apparently powerfully important word: condo!
As a Suzuki Guitar teacher, I've been to CSI many times over the past 11 years as a teacher trainee and to observe my own students. As one would assume, the experience as a parent provides different opportunities and challenges.
The summer of 2022 was my daughter Sagan's second year at Beaver Creek, and building on what we learned the first year we had an even better time. With Mom, Grammie Sue, and younger brother Simon in tow, we were able to spend lots of time in class and, more importantly to 5-year-old Sagan, more time in the pool! And the kids learned a new and apparently powerfully important word: condo!
As a Suzuki Guitar teacher, I've been to CSI many times over the past 11 years as a teacher trainee and to observe my own students. As one would assume, the experience as a parent provides different opportunities and challenges.
Sagan's Master Class teacher this year was Jane Reed. I was already acquainted with Jane – she was one of my earliest Suzuki instructors. So I was thrilled to learn she'd be helping Sagan every day.
Our Master Class lessons were fantastic, and Jane was thoughtful, logical, and patient with Sagan and the two other young students in the class. She was respectful and curious about our home teacher's approach and made sure we understood what we needed to work on back at the condo.
Emma Shubin led Sagan's Dalcroze movement classes and all the kids were fully engaged and definitely enjoyed starting the day with some healthy dancing and vigorous wiggling.
As Sagan is only 5, our activities and class time were on the light side but I'm well aware that the true value of the institute is in the environment and being a part of a larger community of musicians. Sagan made many fast friends and was inspired and curious to see all the other kids toting their instruments around the village.
Given that I'm a Suzuki teacher, we certainly will be attending next year, and I'm sure until Sagan ages out. The value of the experience is crystal clear. If you're going to take the time and energy to be a Suzuki parent, you might as well go all in; if you can attend next year you won't regret it.
Mike Hyland
Littleton, CO