Fifteen years ago, I started teaching at Swiss music universities. Before that, while still studying for my MA in performance and pedagogy, I taught singing to kids and young adults in The Hague: in private, on a theater school, and for special projects done by the city’s large music school.
Having had wonderful teachers throughout my entire life, teaching to me was a vocation much more than a job. I still feel this way about it.
Looking back, I am so grateful for all the moments of great privilege: witnessing development, creativity, as well as hardship and difficult phases in the process of students becoming professionals. I have written about my approach to teaching here (scroll down to page 70/71, in German).
Being on the faculty of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne as well as the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lausanne, I’ve taught a wide range of students, with diverse backgrounds and goals. For me, working with students with a long-term perspective and being able to be part of someone else’s development during many years is a deeply fascinating and touching process. And in many ways, I think teaching is art.
What makes me most happy about teaching is that my former students have carved out artistic paths of their own, and gone about it in such varied ways.