All our faculty have come to this approach as a result of their own search for concrete answers and solutions, whether to nagging frustrations with playing, years of struggling with a severe injury, or pedagogical curiosity. Each of them brings a unique perspective to this work.
Want to schedule a lesson with one of our faculty? Contact them directly or ask us for a recommendation.
Sophie Till
Violinist Sophie Till’s teaching has become internationally known for solving playing-related injuries and for her work teaching professional orchestral players. Since 2013, she has given numerous workshops and lecture series and has organized symposiums for professional orchestral players, teachers and students in the U.S, U.K, Singapore and Australia, where she was also featured as a keynote speaker for the Australian String Teachers Conference. Since 2015 she has made annual visits to the U.K., teaching and running workshops for members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and BBC Orchestras. In 2016, she made her first visit to teach members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and is now the orchestra’s first string specialist. Sophie regularly teaches professional players, teachers and students from all over the world via Skype, and many come in person to undertake intensive periods of lessons. She is Associate Professor of Violin at Marywood University Pennsylvania and Director of the Marywood String Project for children ages 4-18. The combination of Sophie’s work in String Project and with professional players has resulted in a new children’s pedagogy now being used in schools and string programs internationally.
Sophie is active as a performer, in particular with duo partner Ron Stabinsky, with whom she has played for over twenty years. They have given recital series in the U.S and U.K, have been featured in live television performances and radio broadcasts, and have recorded together.
Sophie studied with Dona Lee Croft at the Royal College of Music Junior Department in London from the age of 9. She completed her undergraduate studies with Zakhar Bron at the Royal Academy of Music, London and in Lübeck, Germany and her graduate work with Charles Treger at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her studies took a different turn when in 2007, Sophie started studying with pianist Edna Golandsky, the foremost proponent of the Taubman Approach and Director of the Golandsky Institute. Sophie immediately recognized the extraordinary nature of the information and under Ms. Golandsky’s guidance, they started to develop the approach for violin. In addition to weekly lessons, Sophie undertook the Institute’s Teacher Training program, eventually joining the faculty. It has been Sophie’s work with Edna and her time at the Institute that has inspired the creation of the Till Project, providing other string players access to this unique knowledge and approach.
Rachel Smith
Australian violinist Rachel Smith has a varied career as performer, teacher and festival director. She is a member of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and lives in Edinburgh, where she is on the teaching faculty at St. Mary’s Music School.
Rachel completed her undergraduate degree at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music with Michele Walsh, then began her professional musical life as a member of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 1997. During her 13 years there she took study leave periods in Chicago (Northwestern University) and Berlin. A very active chamber musician, she is a former member of the Iven Street Trio and the founding director of the Stradbroke Chamber Music Festival, which has been held yearly on the beautiful subtropical Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island) since its inception in 2007.
In 2009, while struggling with a playing-related injury, Rachel was introduced to Sophie Till by her pianist friend Therese Milanovic, a proponent of the Taubman Approach. The Skype sessions with Sophie began—and haven’t stopped! Her curiosity was piqued, and she found that the layers of understanding needed to play the violin in a healthy way are by no means magical or accidental.
Rachel loves to craft and make, and to understand structure, the fabric of things and their underlying nature. Recently she made the revelatory connection that playing the violin is just the same—we need to understand the fabric of the sound and how to produce it in a precise physical way so that we can communicate exactly what we want to an audience.
Sally Anne Anderson
Violinist Sally Anne Anderson values having a portfolio career that equally combines performing with music education. Section violinist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sally Anne is a lead musician for the Liverpool Philharmonic’s El Sistema-inspired music education project, In Harmony Liverpool.
A specialist in group string teaching, Sally Anne currently teaches around 200 children weekly. She is enthusiastic about developing ways for teaching a healthy technique to large groups using the knowledge she has gained from studying with Sophie Till. Sally Anne has created many resources to support her style of teaching, including two series of books: ‘Tune Up!’ for instrument learning and ‘Sticks & Blobs’ for general musicianship development.
A firm believer in the benefits of residential courses for young people, Sally Anne is also the Music Director for Priory Farm Music Camp, summer retreats for 7 to 17-year-olds that combine music and the great outdoors. As conductor of the camp orchestra, Sally Anne gets exciting results from teaching the orchestral repertoire from the inside out using the fundamentals of music, song and movement. She is also a music tutor for the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain, the Benedetti Foundation and teaches at Chetham’s School of Music.
Sally Anne studied violin at the Royal Academy Music in London with Diana Cummings, in Berlin with Ilan Gronich and currently with Sophie Till.
Nora Krohn
New York City-based violist Nora Krohn's career as a performer, educator, and writer explores the confluence of artistic expression, self-reflection, and health. Her orchestral work has taken her to four continents and venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kimmel Center, and the Teatro Colón. Former Principal of the Bridgeport Symphony, former Assistant Principal of the Ridgefield Symphony, and former section violist in the Greenwich Symphony, Nora is a frequent guest of other orchestras throughout the Northeast US. She toured Japan twice as Principal of the Balkan Chamber Orchestra, appearing live in concert and on national radio and television to champion the possibility of peace and reconciliation through music. An emerging recitalist, her commitment to thoughtful and diverse programming has charmed audiences at numerous recital series throughout the US and Canada, most recently the Oasis Musicale series at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal.
Following her recovery from focal dystonia under the guidance of the Till Approach, Nora has become an ardent advocate of healthy musicianship, and enjoys spreading knowledge about injury prevention and healing far and wide. This focus on physical health as well as mindfulness also forms the backbone of her pedagogy, no matter the students' age or level. She has taught at Sunnyside String School, Turtle Bay Music School, the Art of Practicing Institute, and the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke's, and currently maintains a private studio in New York City and online.
A deeply reflective writer in both English and Spanish, Nora delves into the intersection of performance, self-development, and spirituality on her blog, Living in the Middle Voice, which has readership in over 70 countries worldwide.
Nora graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University, where she earned a BA in Music and Spanish Literature and was the recipient of the Buxtehude and Muriel Hassenfeld Mann Premiums in Music. She received her MM in Viola Performance from SUNY Purchase College, where she studied with Ira Weller.
Pedagogy Team
Stephanie Paden
Stephanie Paden is a music educator currently teaching middle school (Grades 5-8) strings and orchestra in the North Pocono School District, as well as private violin and viola lessons locally in northeastern Pennsylvania (US) and online. Previous public school and private teaching experience includes serving as a string coach for the Young People’s Philharmonic of the Lehigh Valley, string methods courses and violin lessons at Clarks Summit University, and kindergarten through 8th grade general, choral, and instrumental music in the Hazleton Area School District. At North Pocono and Hazleton Area, Stephanie was part of faculty teams which conducted significant rewriting of string/orchestra curriculum and general music curriculum, respectively. Stephanie holds a BMus in Music Education from Houghton University and an MA in Music Education from Marywood University.
Stephanie began studying violin with Sophie Till in 2011 while searching for a solution to playing-related pain and injury. The Till Approach provided a path not only to pain-free playing, but also to greater technical and musical possibilities. Stephanie has continued to study the Till Approach for personal and professional development, focusing on it in the culminating work of her graduate degree (A Personal Journey Reveals a Path to Professional Pedagogy) and rebuilding her classroom string pedagogy with it as the foundation. She has shared the Till Approach with fellow music educators at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) 2023 District 11 In-Service Day and the statewide PMEA 2024 Annual In-Service Conference in a presentation entitled “Global to Local: Wellness for Strings in Our Schools”. In recent years Stephanie has had the pleasure of working with other Till Project faculty members Sophie Till, Sally Anne Anderson (co-founders), and Alexandra Dunn to create the Till Project Pedagogy Certificate.
Alexandra Dunn
Alex Dunn is Deputy Artistic Director of In Harmony Liverpool, Liverpool Philharmonic’s flagship music education program. Alex has been an integral part of the program since its inception in 2009 with 84 young people. In Harmony Liverpool now engages with over 1,700 young people and their families each year.
While at secondary school, Alex had the opportunity to work alongside and be mentored by music teachers delivering creative workshops for primary school children. This piqued her interest in pedagogy and she followed that pathway alongside performance. Alex studied the violin at the Royal Northern College of Music with Steven Wilkie and Jonathan Morton and was the recipient of the Olive Zorian scholarship for her postgraduate studies. Her studies there included further study of the Kodaly method and Dalcroze Eurythmics, and observing those in action at the RNCM’s Young Strings program. Alex also trained and worked for the Education teams at Opera North and Sinfonia Viva before this experience combined with her time on the professional experience scheme at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra led her to In Harmony Liverpool.
As part of her role, Alex leads on curriculum and learning, student placements and Continued Professional Development (musician team and classroom teachers). Alex has delivered seminars and workshops for classroom teachers across the North West of England; for music students at the University of Liverpool and the Royal Northern College of Music; for young people and their families as part of CareersFest at Liverpool Philharmonic and for music professionals as part of national and international music conferences.
Sophie Till was Alex’s violin teacher from the ages of 8-13 and when Sophie came over to Edinburgh in 2015, Alex leapt at the chance to learn from her again. Alongside Sally Anne Anderson, Alex has gradually been implementing the Till Approach into the Curriculum and Pedagogy of in Harmony Liverpool.
Alex is also Co-Artistic Director of Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Academy Orchestra and musicianship tutor and Assistant Conductor for Choirs.
