Alison Garner

Alison Maerker Garner received her BM in Violin Performance from Indiana University (1986) with highest honors. She stayed on an extra year to study twice a week with Gingold, weekly with Paul Biss and with Miriam Fried. Ms. Garner created her own MS program in Music Education, Child Development and Inter-related Arts Education with concentrations in Dalcroze-Eurhythmics and Piano. Soloist for the Suzuki Talent Education Association of Knoxville Program, Ms. Garner toured on both violin and piano extensively throughout North and South America from 1970-1980 in such concert halls as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center for President Carter, and Atlanta’s Symphony Hall. Her private teachers were Constance Starr (piano,) Hiroko Lippmann, Linda Case and William Starr (violin.) Ms. Garner has in addition to her Suzuki registration and 35 years running Studio2, certification and teaching experience in Kodaly (1995,) Orff (1994,) Dalcroze-Eurhythmics (1993,) Creative Ability Development (2018,) ECE in London, ON with Dorothy Jones (1999,) and Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory which are the elements of her Musical Minds curriculum. She has held a tenured position in the Sacramento Symphony, has been a member of Trillium Trio, La Scala Piano Quintet, the Oak Ridge String Quartet, KEMP (Baroque violin,) Red-Haired Mary (Irish fiddle,) and currently plays solo recitals through SalonMuse and participates in collaborative Transformance Art: a performance experience integrating culture, media, music, theater and dance. She is the author of fourteen published books on Musical Minds, nine CDs, and has articles published in the Clavier Companion, The Suzuki Journal, The American String Teacher, The Kodaly Envoy, Music Educators’ Journal, Teaching Music Journal and academia.edu. Ms. Garner has directed workshops, presented at MTNA, ASTA and SAA conferences, and been a guest clinician at institutes and workshops as a violinist, pianist, Dalcroze instructor, Orff specialist, Kodaly specialist, and Musical Minds educator. She currently teaches a small studio of Suzuki students and runs her Musical Minds program offering instruction and guidance to teachers and musicians in Musical Minds curricula as well as Somatic Attachment counseling, Primal Alexander practices and as an NLP Life-Strategy Coach. Ms. Garner is committed to serving the needs and feelings of students, parents, teachers and musicians through compassion, connectivity, creativity and the ways of Suzuki’s teachings.