A Short
Biography
Shinichi Suzuki spent his life proving that ability
is not inborn and that talent can be created. Born
in Nagoya, Japan on the 17th of October in 1898, he
is remembered for his method of teaching young
children so that all develop exceptional talent.
His father, Masakichi Suzuki, ran a workshop that
made traditional Japanese stringed instruments.
Fascinated with the violin, he made his first one in
1888, and by the early 1900's he owned the first
violin factory in Japan, which was also the largest
in the world. He intended for his son Shinichi to
help run the family business. Shinichi Suzuki
instead taught himself to play the violin, inspired
by a recording of Mischa Elman playing Schubert's
Ave Maria. A wealthy Japanese nobleman from the
Tokugawa family became Suzuki's patron, first
inviting him to Tokyo for lessons with Ko Ando, a
former student of Joachim, and then bringing him to
Berlin in 1921 for further study. Suzuki there
became a student of Karl Klingler, another Joachim
pupil.
While in Berlin, Suzuki was befriended by Albert
Einstein. On one of many musical evenings he met his
future wife, Waltraud Prange, a soprano. They
married in 1928. Suzuki returned to Japan the next
year and formed a string quartet with three of his
brothers, touring the country to give concerts. In
1930 he became president of the Teikoku Music School
and was conductor of the Tokyo String Orchestra.
At a quartet rehearsal one day in 1933 he surprised
his brothers by suddenly stating what they
considered obvious: that ALL Japanese children speak
Japanese. With this simple observation, Shinichi
Suzuki had discovered a way to develop musical
ability in young children. Children can learn to
play a musical instrument (or anything else) in the
same way that they first learn language.
In 1946 Suzuki went to Matsumoto where he helped
start a music school, eventually named the Talent
Education Research Institute. In this remote city in
the center of Japan, beneath an ancient castle and
in the shadow of the massive and beautiful "Japan
Alps" he continued to develop his method. By the
1960's, Western teachers had begun to travel there
in order to see Suzuki's students and to learn from
him. In 1964 the first Japanese Suzuki tour group
performed in the USA for music educators, and in
1973 the tour group traveled in Europe.
Suzuki achieved much of what he did because of the
support of his remarkable wife, Waltraud. She
painstakingly prepared an English translation (from
the Japanese) of his autobiography, Nurtured by
Love, first published in 1969.
Suzuki's success was immediate and far-reaching. His
first pupils, Toshiya Eto and Koji Toyoda, have
achieved international renown. Many of today's
soloists and members of the finest orchestras
started their musical education as Suzuki students,
as have a high proportion of students presently
studying in music conservatories. Today there are
over 8,000 trained Suzuki teachers and nearly a
quarter of a million Suzuki pupils, worldwide.
Suzuki often spoke of nurturing the "life force,"
His was exemplary. He continued to be active as a
teacher throughout the world until well into his
nineties and died in his sleep at his home in Japan
on the 26th of January in his 100th year. During his
lifetime he received many honorary degrees, was also
named a Living National Treasure by the Emperor of
Japan, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Enid Wood
Please
also see the following:
TERI (Japan):
Personal History of Shinichi Suzuki
Suzuki Association of
the Americas:
The Story of Shinichi Suzuki
Suzuki Music
(Australia):
Biography of Shinichi
Suzuki
