Bio

Musical Biography

I am a classical guitarist active as a performer and teacher in Montreal. I hold degrees from the University of Ottawa, the Hochschule fuer Musik Franz Liszt; Weimar, Germany and the Hochschule fuer Musik Koeln; Cologne, Germany. My teachers have included Bruce Holzman (USA), Patrick Roux (Canada), Thomas Mueller-Pering (Germany) and Zoran Dukic (Croatia). I have performed in Canada, USA, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Russia.

Personal Biography

My life had an international character right from the beginning as I was born to Canadian parents in the German city of Iserlohn at a British military hospital and delivered by a Chinese doctor. My father was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and was stationed in nearby Soest at the time. Ironically, although Iserlohn is neither one of Germany’s better known nor prettier cities, it is now home to one of Europe’s largest classical guitar festivals. I spent the first two years of my life living in the small German town of Vollinghausen before we moved to Canada.

In Canada we moved to a different city every three to four years due to my father being in the military. I lived on both the Atlantic (Halifax) and Pacific (Vancouver) coasts and several places in between. We finally ended up in Ottawa where I graduated from high school and completed my undergraduate degrees at the University of Ottawa. During this time I also spent three years in the Canadian Military Reserves as a combat engineer and in addition to basic infantry skills received training in explosives, mine field clearance and bridge building. The highlight of my military career was being chosen to blow up a large truck with a bangelore torpedo, several thousand dollars worth of very high explosive.

In addition to earning my music degrees at the University of Ottawa, my relationship with the guitar took me to Tallahassee, Florida in the USA and Weimar and Aachen/Cologne in Germany. After completing my guitar studies I moved to the city of Leipzig, Germany where I lived and worked for four years. Before returning to Canada I also lived in Yaroslavl, Russia, and return there regularly to visit friends. One of the advantages of living in so many countries has been that I am now able to speak four languages, English (my native language), French, German and Russian.

Teaching Info

The first thing one has to learn to become a good musician is how to play your instrument properly. While this may seem obvious enough, it is surprising how neglected this approach is especially in guitar teaching. Many teachers teach the guitar by simply teaching songs at the very beginning without teaching the technique required to play them properly. This is a sink or swim approach and even many of those who swim, i.e. manage to learn to play the songs, develop a poor technique in doing so which will have serious consequences later on. My approach is to teach the technical basis first and then teach the songs that can be played with this technique. This approach may initially take a bit longer, i.e. you won’t learn to struggle through your favourite Beatles song in the first lesson, but develops a sound foundation upon which to build. Within 6 months a student taught using this approach can play far more music far more competently than the one in the less structured approach.

I also believe that a student has to have some degree of self-motivation and the lessons must be enjoyable. Younger students may need some positive reminding/encouragement from their parents to practice but if they don’t want to practice, I do not believe that the teacher or the parents should force them to. One hears many stories of people who have had bad experiences with teachers who were very strict, critical and demanding. I think music should be a positive and not a negative force in someone’s life. If a person enjoys playing the guitar and enjoys their lessons this will motivate them to practice far more then external pressure. If they do not enjoy playing guitar, then it is better that their energies are spent elsewhere. By the same token, I think the student should be the one who chooses what type of music he wants to play. It is my job to ensure he plays the guitar well (which requires learning some standard songs/exercises) but once a level of competency has been attained it is up to the student to decide what musical direction he wants to explore. Many of my students, however, end up trying musical styles that are completely different than what they first intended to learn.

For a more detailed description of my approach to teaching, please read the article, My Teaching Method.

Lessons

Most students take a single one-hour lesson per week but I also offer 30 minute lessons for young children. I feel that lessons of one hour are the optimal length of time to cover the necessary material. 30 minute lessons can be better for young students under the age of 10 as they may have trouble concentrating for one hour although this is not always the case. I teach students of all ages, at present I have students who are retired and several under the age of 10. Parents are welcome to watch the lesson. My current rates are $50 for a one hour lesson and $25 for a 30 minute lesson (for children).