MUSICIANSHIP AND TECHNIQUE FLOURISH TOGETHER
The purpose of this website is to encourage violists to integrate technical and musical ideas during the practice of fundamental skills, using each to elevate and inform the other, providing a familiar and comprehensive set of tools and expectations that will be useful for solving musical and technical challenges in the repertoire.
I invite you to think about your viola playing in a conscious, productive way. Any technique which doesn’t allow your musical ideas to be heard, or any musical idea that you cannot reliably execute, and anything that locks you into tension is not usable. Don’t waste your time on useless things. Focus your attentions during your warm-up to:
train your ears
integrate left hand and right hand
become proficient at identifying actual problems and apply their actual solutions
create a comprehensive fundamental viola technique
choreograph physical release into your playing
train your mind to focus on command
align intention and execution by learning how to listen accurately in the moment
gain confidence in your heightened awareness and enjoy the rewards of devotion
Learn how to teach yourself. Pay attention every moment of your practice. Create a hierarchy of priorities, general to musicianship and viola, and specific to you as a player, to organize your practice and create a sense of order in your mind. This should allow you to be more strategic in your practice, more present in your performing, and more satisfied with your time with the instrument. If you allow yourself to learn it is possible to make great changes very quickly. Use your warm-up to become a better, healthier musician!
This project grew from my experience teaching advanced students, pre-professionals, and early professionals. I wanted to offer them a resource for continuing to think about their playing. These are the universal values I try to impart to all students. With casual access to the ideas on these pages a student may find another chance to understand something I’ve mentioned in a lesson, or something new. Every teacher’s goal is for students to become their own teachers.
In the many hours of organizing and clarifying this website, I have found room for personal growth myself as I have further integrated my own playing: incorporating physical release into my vision for my performances, in small moments of technical challenge, in structural ways throughout particularly arduous or lengthy repertoire, and while recovering from an injury. Overwhelmingly, practicing is about engaging your mind for every moment with the instrument from every possible angle and with conscious focus. Some of these ideas may prove useful to early students and other professional players as well. I hope you find something worth your consideration amongst these pages.
Kathryn Sievers
joined the viola section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in February 2018. Ms. Sievers was born in Boston to a family of scientists and grew up in the Marshall Islands. She earned an undergraduate degree in English literature from Yale, a master of music degree from Juilliard, and a Professional Studies certificate from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Influential teachers include Robert Vernon, Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Erick Friedman. After completing her studies she embarked on an active freelance career, including work with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Santa Fe Opera. Prior to joining the Boston Symphony, Ms. Sievers worked frequently as a substitute musician with the orchestra and was a member of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine. Each summer she can be heard at Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Kathryn joined the faculty of NEC Prep in 2012, worked to cultivate ownership of classical music in young students in NYC public school classrooms as a Morse Fellow at Juilliard, and taught her first private lessons at the age of 11 in the Marshall Islands. She has taught students at the beginning of their relationship with the viola, young professionals interested in taking auditions, and everything in between. Her work has been featured in the Teacher’s Toolbox of the American Viola Society.