cedar newman

Manhattan School of Music–trained violinist — technique, repertoire, and audition preparation

I'm an Australian violinist. I trained at the Manhattan School of Music on a full President's Merit Scholarship, studying with Lucie Robert and, before that, Albert Markov. While I was there I won the school's concerto competition, and more recently the 2023 Eva Pascoe Award. I've appeared as a soloist with the Southern Highlands Symphony and Steel City Strings, and I perform regularly in recital.I started on violin busking at folk festivals when I was thirteen, which is probably why I care as much about how a phrase communicates as whether it's technically clean. Both matter. Most of my teaching ends up being diagnostic — working out why something isn't working rather than repeating it until it does. Bow distribution, left hand tension, shifting that's really an intonation problem in disguise.I work with intermediate and advanced players, adult returners, and students preparing for auditions, AMEB grades, or conservatory entrance. I'm also glad to coach specific repertoire if you're working on a piece and it's stopped moving.I teach across Australian and US time zones, so evening slots in either country are usually available.

A lot of violin study drifts away from the music itself. Grades, exams and auditions have their place, and I prepare students for all of them, but the treadmill can quietly become the whole point. Students end up playing pieces they don't like, for assessors, to reach a level that then requires the next level. Some of the most technically capable players I've met had lost track of why they started.

I'm not casual about technique — I trained in Albert Markov's system with him directly, and it's rigorous. Biomechanics of the hand and arm, practising from stops, relaxation treated as technique rather than advice. I'll hold you to that standard because it's what gives you options later. But technique isn't the point of technique. I learned that from Lucie Robert at Manhattan School of Music, who studied with Josef Gingold, who studied with Ysaÿe — a school built on singing tone and phrasing that carries. The mechanics exist so you can say something and have someone hear it.

In practice that means playing repertoire you actually want to play alongside whatever the syllabus requires, and spending time on what a piece is doing rather than only on how to execute it.

It also means treating performance as part of learning rather than the test at the end. Play for family, for friends, for anyone, regularly and at low stakes. Students who only ever perform in exams find performing frightening, which is reasonable — the only data they have says it's an assessment. Students who play for people often find it's mostly enjoyable.