Drew Martin Youmans
About
Hi there, thanks for stopping by! My name is Drew-Martin Youmans, and I am a 28 year old professional violinist working in the NYC area but living in the historic Hudson Valley. I currently split my time 50/50 between an exciting orchestral career and teaching, and I decided to give online lessons a try for the new year.
The orchestra that I play in full time as a resident artist is called The Orchestra Now (TON)-an 80 person training orchestra that plays over thirty concerts a year in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Jazz: at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, The Metropolitan Museum, Alice Tully Hall, The Fisher Center for Performing Arts, among others. With TON I have recorded a variety of albums, and I am a Hyperion and a Bridge Records artist.
Away from the violin, I enjoy reading with my cat, binging on Netflix, cooking from scratch, and golf.
I have studied violin for 24 years now, with over 15 major mentors or teachers involved in that process. While having such a huge amount of cooks in the kitchen so to speak hasn’t done wonders for my soloistic career, it has given me a vast arsenal of teaching techniques which I enjoy using a variety of in every lesson. My home studio of 12 students in real life ranges from ages 6 to 78, and I am beginning to advertise myself as a specialist in adult lessons.
I don’t have any particular philosophy about my teaching, but here’s my secret sauce: I’ll break down what the problem is, present whatever solutions I’ve used for myself, and show you how to find what works best for your body! Everyone’s mind and body is so different and that really comes to the fore in music lessons, so I try to be as flexible as possible and just help lead you to an easy solution that you understand.
B.M Aaron Copland School of Music at C.U.N.Y Queens College (violin performance, 2014)
M.M The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University (violin performance, 2016)
M.M The Orchestra Now at Bard College (curatorial and orchestral studies, 2019)