Emma Colligan teaches 50 young violin students at her School of Violin in New Zealand. She also performs with Orchestra Wellington and does freelance gigs. In 2006, she was studying her Violin Performance Masters at the Longy School of Music and ended up structuring all her courses around her favorite teacher and mine: Mr. Mark Lakirovich.

• (0:11) Story of how we met at Longy School of Music and studied with Mark Lakirovich. She also taught me violin while studying pedagogy with him.
• (1:22) I asked her if anything carried over in her teaching. "Totally! Basically everything!"
• (2:13) Reminiscing "You couldn't really repeat that time of my life. I was in the right place at the right time to get that experience; just kind of lucky. I just remember spending hours in that teaching room, and it was always an hour behind - and it didn't bother me at all! – and you kind of just knew that if you were last you were not gonna start on time, but you had to show up on time just in case." But then you'd get to listen in to the previous or next lesson, and that's such good teaching too. "It was so cosy and timeless!"
• (3:36) "I just found it fascinating, watching. Especially when he was working with younger students, seeing how he was going to develop them and the order he was going to do things in. I'd never seen him working with such talented kids where it makes a massive massive difference how you deliver and what you give."
• (4:16) Emma would always have a notebook with her, and she'd bring it to our private lessons as well.
• (4:32) She read an entry from the notebook about a hilarious way Mark delivered the feedback. "Have you invented a new bow direction? Sideways?" "You've knocked on the wrong door. D-flat is D's neighbor. Hear the D-flat before you move. Second finger will take you up."
• (5:40) Reminiscing cont. about the usefulness of Mark's practice techniques. "Rhythm practice, double stop practice..."
• (6:13) Emma's students love her "I just try to get them to love violin, but I actually think most of them (barring maybe 5 to 10) cause I've got about 50 kids – I think most of them just come to hang out with me, and talk to me about stuff that's going on at school. They just think that it's fun. But at the same time that's just good. Obviously we're still doing violin stuff. If you enjoy that part of your day it will translate into you liking the violin."
• (7:40) It's not all jolly fun – "You get pretty tired quite quickly; it's a lot of energy. And you always have to be thinking ahead and if you're not really feeling it you have to act like you are. But the kids usually make me feel better and they'll say something really funny."
• (8:52) "Sometimes I have to write them down without letting them see that I'm writing them down. Cause I know that I'll find it funny later."
• (9:20) "Now I'm on my long break. No teaching until first of February. And I find that I really need that time. Kind of like your June-July"
• (9:47) This year isn't the year for a summer academy
• (9:55) Mr. Mark answering the phone calls from composers we were playing.
• (10:08) The Russian we learned at lesson :) "Da" "Horosho" "Baka"
• (10:27) Have you talked to him at all? He asked me to teach at Cremona, an International Music Academy.
• (11:02) Rescinded – "I don't think we'll be going to Cremona because of Corona." and I thought it was a joke but I saw the news. (11:46) So things got real.
• (12:00) "I remember thinking nah it's gonna be fine. Nothing ever happens in New Zealand."
• (12:57) "Everyone did what we were supposed to do. People really care about each other and our country. And if you weren't doing what they're supposed to be doing, people would look at you like you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing."
• (13:30) Prime Minister and government officials in NZ made it easy to follow rules at each level of lockdown. "I kind of wish I was best friends with her. The other week I played a gig for the opening of Parliament, so I snuck a photo in." Perks of being a kiwi: essentially COVID-free country!
• (14:39) "During lockdown level 4, which lasted 8 weeks, that's when I did all my online teaching... in the end sometimes I had a kid who was like kind of in the corner – ok, just keep going – and I only see the top of their head or the scroll"
• (15:20) Where do students get their violins? The generic-type Paganini brand! (The virtuoso violinist and composer with huge hands who could play tenths like nobody's business and who was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil so he could achieve such mastery in his performances).
• (16:04) The mysterious full-size violin and its surprise restoration value :)
• (18:42) Final anecdote with quote coming full circle to the story of her first lesson with Mark Lakirovich: double stop scales! "If you work hard but don't take things too seriously, it'll be fine."
• Adorable video here. https://www.nzmusicteachers.co.nz/emma-colligan/

A big thank you to Emma Colligan for joining me for this amazing conversation and paving the way for this up and coming Kiwi violin rockstars, and to Mark Lakirovich for teaching us all.

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