Fiona Richards

I am an enthusiastic and energetic teacher and have twenty years of experience sharing my love and knowledge of music and violin/viola playing with students of all ages. I come from the UK where I studied at Trinity College of Music, London, and the University of Southampton, and I have recently moved to the beautiful corrézien French countryside. At the moment I teach predominantly online, working with international students.

I have taught for music services in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Enfield and in a variety of public and state schools, and privately. I am experienced at working with groups of different sizes, individuals and coaching ensembles from beginner to advanced. Over the past twenty years, I have regularly entered students for ABRSM with consistently successful results. Alongside this, I have performed professionally in many different settings, with orchestras, chamber music ensembles and theatre productions. My most unusual experience was playing with an Indian Bhangra/folk/pop band at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith and the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham.

As a young musician and student, I loved playing in big symphony orchestras and this is what inspired me the most to keep practising. Nowadays the love of classical music remains but is complemented by my interest in folk music, especially Scandinavian, Irish, Scottish and bluegrass styles. I find the exploration of learning and teaching folk music in the aural tradition very liberating and have attended many Scandinavian folk workshops to learn to play more authentically in this style.

As part of my musical training, I was lucky enough to discover the Alexander Technique and I am now a qualified teacher having completed a three-year training course. It has helped me to overcome pain, awkwardness with the violin, musical blockages and much more besides. So I can easily empathise with students with similar problems and have experience with helping them to play more freely.

Music Qualifications & Achievements:

I have a BA (Hons) degree in Music from the University of Southampton, a PG Diploma in performance from Trinity College of Music and an MSTAT qualification in Alexander Technique teaching.

One of my most proud musical achievements was working with and arranging music for a string ensemble in a school. The ensemble started with 3 pupils and grew to be such a large group of 25 that they only just fitted on the stage for the school concert!

Performance-wise I am proud of the many chamber recitals I have taken part in with string quartets, quintets and sextets.

I was inspired to teach and to become a professional musician by my own experience of learning with skilled, generous, and insightful teachers, and aspire to pass some of this on to others.