INTERNATIONAL REGION
Jane Shellshear
Location: Sydney, NSW Australia
Instrument: Piano
B.Mus., Performance, University of Sydney
AUSTAT Certified Alexander Technique Teacher, 1994
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2018
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.bodymapping.com.au
Contact: jane@bodymapping.com.au
Jane Shellshear studied piano with Elizabeth Green and Phillip Shovk while undertaking a Bachelor of Music in Performance at the University of Sydney. She continued postgraduate performance studies at the Royal Northern College of Music with Sulamita Aronovsky and in London with Irina Zaritskaya.
On returning to Australia, her interest in performance disciplines led to gaining qualification as a practitioner of Alexander Technique and most recently as the first accredited Body Mapping Educator resident in Australia.
As a music educator, Jane has extensive knowledge in performance practice across mainstream genres and a depth of experience in instrumental teaching. Integrating this with a sophisticated approach to how movement and manner of physical use impacts upon performance gives her teaching a unique tone.
She is a member of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare and the Australian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique.
Liisa Ruoho
Location: Finland
Instrument: Flute
Degrees from Silblius Academy, Helsinki, Finland and Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Additional study with Severino Gazzelloni and Aurele Nicolet
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2009
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Contact: liisa.ruoho@uniarts.fi
Liisa Ruoho is known throughout Europe as a consummate performer as well as a brilliant teacher. She presents concerts throughout Europe almost monthly, and is a regular teacher at several master classes in Greece, Iceland, and Finland. At the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, Liisa is a Flute Professor, Director of the Wind Department, and Vice-Director of the Orchestral Instruments Department. Her Academy students receive 2 hours of private lessons every week, as well as weekly Body Mapping, pedagogy, and performance classes. Formerly an assistant to Severino Gazzelloni in Italy, she studied with Gazzelloni and with Aurele Nicolet. Her personal study of the Alexander Technique revolutionized both her playing and teaching, and for over 40 years she has taught flutists how to use their original instrument – the body. She now presents workshops throughout Europe and is designing a joint Body Mapping course with the Sibelius Academy and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Claire Stefani
Location: Paris, France and New York, New York
Instrument: Violin/Viola
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2020
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: https://www.voluteservice.com
Contact: claire@voluteservice.com
Claire Stefani is the founder of Volute Service International, an interface between music instrument/accessory makers and orchestral string instrument players and teachers. One of her fields of expertise is to assist upper string players in optimizing their chin/shoulder rest set-up. Claire is a Corrective Exercise Specialist, a licensed Body Mapping educator and an avid amateur violist. Her French translation of Jennifer Johnson’s second book “Teaching Body Mapping to children” was published in 2019 (Editions Vandevelde).
Claire has collaborated with New World Symphony, Met Opera, NewYork Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars, as well as Paris Conservatoire National, Zaragoza Conservatorio Superior de Música and Stockholm Royal College of Music. She also worked with students of prominent musicians such as David Kim (concertmaster Philadelphia Orchestra), Carol Rodland (Juilliard viola professor), Li Lin (Juilliard violin professor), Dimitri Murrath (San Francisco Conservatory viola professor), Susan Dubois (UNT Dallas viola professor), Josep Colomé (violin professor Aragón- Zaragoza, Spain) and Nathan Giem (Concertmaster Dresden orchestra - Germany).
Diane Daly
Location: Ireland
Instrument: Violin
Performance degrees from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. Masters and Performance PhD, University of Limerick.
Dalcroze Eurhythmics educator
1st European String Player to be accredited as a Licensed Body Mapping Educator 2021.
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: dianedaly.com
Contact: diane.daly@ul.ie
Diane is a violinist and chamber musician. She has been a member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra since 1998 and has toured the world with many prestigious ensembles including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. She is in huge demand as a chamber musician, performing at major international festivals. In other genres she has performed alongside and recorded with Sir Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, The Corrs, Bono, Shania Twain, Katie Melua and plays in her own gypsy jazz trio. She was the recipient of a prestigious scholarship from the Irish Research Council, completing her PhD in 2019. She is currently Course Director of the MA in Classical String Performance in the University of Limerick where she also teaches Dalcroze, Kodaly and improvisation. Based in Co. Clare, she works extensively as an animateur, coach and workshop leader and directs, from the violin, the Irish Chamber Orchestra Academy international string ensemble.
Noriko Igeta
Location: Japan
Instrument: Guitar
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2005
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Contact: igeta.n@nifty.com
Noriko was born in Yokohama, Japan and started playing guitar at age 10.
She studied Alexander Technique and Body Mapping with Hitomi Ono and currently teaches Body Mapping and classical guitar in Yokohama, Japan.
Noriko has written a series of articles published in a monthly guitar magazine.
Hiroko Kawai
Location: Japan
Instrument: Voice
B.A.,Music Education, Hiroshima National University
M.A., Education and Singing Performance from Tokyo-Gakugei National University
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2001
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.hirokokawai.com
Contact: hiro@hirokokawai.com
Hiroko Kawai is a lyric soprano from Japan who has studied in Germany and the Netherlands. She has performed with Ernst Ottensammer, the principal clarinetist of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Stravinsky String Quartet from St. Petersburg, and with the Dvorak Chamber Orchestra from Slovakia. She has also performed in numerous solo recitals throughout western Japan. Her major teachers include Marianne Blok, Elly Ameling, Rudolf Jansen, and Takehisa Kinoshita (for singing); Yehezkel Ein-Shay and Barbara Conable (for the Alexander Technique); Alfred Tomatis and Dominique Cannet (for the Tomatis Method); and Masaaki Hayakawa (for conducting).
Hiroko taught at Fukuyama University and Fukuyama-Heisei University, and is currently a vocal instructor at Chugoku College and the Asahi Culture Center. In addition, she offers private lessons for voice and Body Mapping in her home studio. Since 2000, she has also conducted the Fontana Kurashiki Chamber Choir. Currently, Hiroko lives in western Japan, and is available to teach “What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body” and “What Every Singer Needs to Know about the Body” at any location.
Kayano Nagai
Location: Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan
Instrument: Flute
Osaka Junior College of Music
DipABRSM, LRSM, Royal College of Music, London, U.K., Flute Performance
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2003
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.body-map.net
Contact: info@body-map.net
Kayano graduated from Osaka College of Music and made her debut in Kyoto. Since then, she has been working as a freelance musician and educator. Her musical activities are not only in classical music, but also in many different genres such as having worked with a Latin band and as a recording artist for TV commercials.
She has been active as a Body Mapping lecturer. In August 2004, the lecture on “What Every Flute Player Needs to Know About the Body” which Kayano gave at BFS (British Flute Society) International Flute Convention in Manchester, UK was highly acclaimed. She also has given Body Mapping classes at the William Bennett International Flute Summer School in 2010.
She has been a professor at Tokyo College of Music since 2013, teaching “Physical Expression and Music." This field of study is the first of its kind in a Japanese college, and is based on the Body Mapping. The lectures are attended by many musicians. She gives further lectures and workshops in many places across Japan.
Hitomi Ono
Location: Japan
Instrument: Voice
M.M. Percussion Performance, University of Ottawa
M.G.S. Embodiment and Performance, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2014
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.bodymap-jp.org
www.amac.co.jp/english.html
Contact: info@amac.co.jp
After her graduation of the Osaka College of Music (Voice), Hitomi Ono has studied Voice, Languages, and the Alexander Technique in Europe and USA for 11 years. In 1993 she came back to Japan as the first Japanese teacher of the Alexander Technique, recognized by the Society of the Teacher of the Alexander Technique (STAT, England).
Since then she has been teaching the Alexander Technique, mainly for musicians in Japan and abroad. From 1997-2014 she taught the Alexander Technique and Body Mapping Class as lecturer of the Soai University (Music Department) in Osaka. From 2009-2010, by the recommendation of Nobuko Imai (Violist), she gave lessons and workshops at the Geneva Conservatory and the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland. Through her Alexander Technique Teacher Training Class, which is the first Japanese training class recognized by STAT, six teachers have completed the training.
In 1999 she became the first Japanese Body Mapping Educator trained by Barbara Conable and started teaching the course Body Mapping for Musicians. Since 2008 she was the President of the Body Mapping Educators Japan and in 2017 she became the representative Director of the Body Mapping Educators Japan (AEJ) and the person in the charge of the teacher training. AEJ has 10 members (3 Piano, 2 Flute, 2 Voice, 2 Guitar ).
Aisling Casey
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Instrument: Oboe
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2020
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.aislingcasey.com
Contact: aislingcasey@yahoo.co.uk
Aisling Casey is Principal Oboe with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and prior to this post was Principal Oboe with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic until its closure in 2013. Her first job straight out of college was as Co-Principal Oboe with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. Aisling has been Guest Principal oboe with orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, among others.
She grew up in Ireland's second biggest city, Cork, which has a vibrant (classical) music life and which gave her a solid musical foundation, enriched with a Bachelor of Arts degree at University College Cork, focussing on Music and Applied Psychology. This study was then followed by a Bachelor of Music degree and a Masters in performance in Germany, studying with the renowned oboe professor, Klaus Becker, at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover.
Winning first prize at the Isle of Wight International Oboe Competition (now Barbirolli Competition) shortly after arriving in the Netherlands led to some important concert appearances, including a début recital in London's Purcell Room and performances at many European festivals. She has recorded the Bach Violin & Oboe Concerto with Nigel Kennedy for EMI Classics and has toured with him in the UK and Ireland.
Teaching is a huge passion for Aisling, and she has been teaching at the Amsterdam Conservatoire since 2018. Before that she was for many years professor of oboe at the Rotterdam Conservatoire (Codarts), and gives regular masterclasses abroad.
She loves learning new things and is usually studying something. In 2016 she completed a Masters of Arts degree in Education with a specialisation in Leadership & Management, and before this dabbled in Biological Psychology & Photography.
Aisling qualified as a Body Mapping instructor in 2020 and also completed an Anatomy course at the Peabody Institute, to enhance her (oboe) teaching skills. What drives her the most is anything associated with the oboe and motivating students to become the best they can playing this frustrating but beautiful instrument.
When not oboe playing or teaching, she is closely involved in a number of music related projects. She is one of the founding members of the initiative Splendor, an award-winning, innovative and unique temple for music in the centre of Amsterdam, run by and for musicians from different genres. She is also one of the founding members of the award-winning LUDWIG, a music company formed in 2012 by a group of ambitious & determined colleague musicians and creative thinkers, all well-established in the cultural world. LUDWIG derives its inspiration from its artistic spiritual father, Beethoven, whose entrepreneurship and musical vision were revolutionary. In 2018 they won a Grammy Award with the Canadian soprano/conductor Barbara Hannigan for their first recording together, Crazy Girl Crazy, and their second album Passione came out in 2020 to much critical acclaim.
Frans Huijts
Location: The Netherlands
Instrument: Voice
Degree from the Conservatory of Maastricht, 1979
Degrees from the Royal Conservatory The Hague, 1984
Additional study with Elisabeth Söderström, Elly Ameling, Margreet Honig, Robert Hol, Udo Reinemann, Oren Brown (Juilliard), Rudolf Knol (Salzburg), Christian Elssner (Dresden)
Prize winner of the 'Prix Gabriël Fauré on the "Concours de la mélodie française" in Paris
Laureate at the "International Hugo Wolf Wettbewerb" in Stuttgart
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2017
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.franshuijts.nl
Contact: info@franshuijts.nl
The desire to become a singing teacher was for Frans Huijts clear at an early age. His did first breathing course he at the age of 20 with Sven Smith in Denmark. He developed into a great performing artist, but also into a passionate singing teacher with a great heart for the text in the repertoire and a lot of attention for anatomy, physiology, and breathing – and body work.
Frans has sung several world premieres of contemporary opera productions. With the Dutch Opera Company he sang in Die Soldaten by B.A. Zimmermann and in Orfeo by Monteverdi (director: Pierre Audi). In the “Holland Festival voor Oude Muziek” he sang the leading role of “Corpo” in the theater production of Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo by Emilio de Cavalieri.
Frans is known for his liedrecitals (Concertgebouw Amsterdam, all over the Netherlands, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Osaka and Hong Kong, etc). Dutch composers are regularly on his programs.
As a soloist he participated in several CDs including collaborations with the Dutch Bach Association conducted by Gustav Leonhardt and with repertoire of Dutch composers released by the “Vrienden van het Lied”.
Frans gives workshops in liedinterpretation for duos. As guest-teacher he was invited in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Kingston (Jamaica) and Lusaka (Zambia). Since 2010, he teaches every year in Japan. He is vocal coach for courses at the Schubert Institut in Baden bei Wien. As head of the vocal department, he teaches classical singing at the Codarts University for the Arts Rotterdam.
During his Body Mapping study, Frans got in contact with the work and writing of Moshé Feldenkrais. In November 2016, he started his education to become a Feldenkrais practitioner at the International Amsterdam Feldenkrais Teachers Training, led by Larry Goldfarb. Here he wants to learn to fully understand the quote of Moshé Feldenkrais: "If you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.”
Asdis Valdimarsdottir
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Instrument: Viola
Viola professor at Royal Conservatory The Hague
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Contact: Asdisviola@bodymap.org
Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir comes from Reykjavík, Iceland. She enjoys a varied career as a violist and teacher, currently at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Chamber music has always been her main passion as a violist, and has been a member of several wonderful ensembles; most notably as principal viola of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the violist of the Miami, Chilingirian and Utrecht string quartets.
She has made numerous cd and radio recordings with these ensembles. Recently she made two CD’s with the title ‘The Voice of the Viola in times of oppression’ with the pianist Marcel Worms for Zefir records, with works by Shostakovich, Weinberg and others. For the same label she recorded the complete String Trios by Beethoven for his 250th birthday with the Brunsvik String Trio. Her most recent CD is titled ‘Stolen Schubert’, with her own arrangements. Later in 2022 her arrangement of Telemann’s Gamba Fantasias for viola will be published by the French publisher Billaudot.
Ásdís is currently professor of viola and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory The Hague. Body Mapping has become an essential part of her teaching and she qualified as a Body Mapping Educator in 2021.
Dr. Bridget Rennie-Salonen
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Instrument: Flute
PhD (Music)
Post Graduate Diploma in Music
Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music
Bachelor of Arts
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.bridgetrs.com
Contact: bridget@bridgetrs.com
Dr. Bridget Rennie-Salonen, flautist and practitioner and researcher in Performing Arts Health, is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Africa Open Institute for Music Research and Innovation, Stellenbosch University. She is chair of the steering committee of the South African Performing Arts Health Association and is a core member of the international research collaboration, the Musicians' Health Literacy Consortium, on musicians’ health education and health literacy. Bridget’s PhD focused on musicians’ occupational health curriculum content, implementation, and assessment. The methodology was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Qualified as a Licensed Body Mapping Educator and holding certificates in the Essentials of Performing Arts Medicine and in Functional Anatomy, she is interested in the field of somatics and the interaction of the psychological, physical, and artistic aspects in performing artists, from preventative, therapeutic, and performance optimisation perspectives. Bridget lectures part-time at Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town. She is highly sought after as a flute teacher, and many of her students have excelled in competitions and in overseas studies, won scholarships for study abroad, and now teach and perform, several occupying positions in South African orchestras. A very well-known performer in multiple genres, Bridget has appeared as soloist with several South African orchestras. As the Solo Principal Flute of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, she was the recipient of the prestigious Ben & Faye Carklin Award for Artistic Excellence. Recent awards include Fiesta, Silver Ovation, Fanie Beetge Academic Prize, and Oppenheimer Memorial Trust awards. Bridget is the principal flute of the Cape Town Festival Orchestra, permanent guest principal flute with the Free State Symphony Orchestra, and Baroque traverso flautist with the Camerata Tinta Barocca.
Sarah Newbold
Location: South Wales and London, UK
Instrument: Flute
Bachelor of Arts (Hons)
Associate of the Royal Academy of Music
Licenciate of the Royal College of Music
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2014
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.gsmd.ac.uk/music/staff/teaching_staff/department/2-department-of-wind-brass-and-percussion/67-sarah-newbold
Contact: sarahnewbold@yahoo.co.uk
Sarah is a member of the Academy of St.Martin in-the-Fields and the New London Orchestra and formerly of both Welsh National Opera and the London Philharmonic. As a freelance flute player, she works with most of the orchestras in Great Britain. A keen chamber musician, Sarah is a member of Cardiff Winds and Dragonfly.
As a freelance flautist Sarah is able to work in a variety of musical styles, ranging from opera, symphony and chamber orchestras, chamber music, and recitals to film sessions and some period instrument work. Teaching plays an important part in Sarah’s musical life; she has been a professor of flute at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama since 1989. In collaboration with Ian Clarke, she redesigned the technical requirements for the woodwinds at the Guildhall School. This has led to invitations to present workshops at the “Reflective Conservatoire” conference at the Barbican, London and also “Professional Development” Seminars in Finland and Norway.
In addition, since September 2010, Sarah has been a professor of flute at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Together with Zoe Smith, piano, she is director of the Llangenny Flute Summer School which has run annually since 2008. Sarah is a regular coach for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and for the I-Culture orchestra in Poland. She is sought after as an adjudicator and examiner, regularly gives masterclasses and recitals in Britain and recently in Norway, Greece, Finland, Ireland and France.
Sarah studied the flute with Atarah Ben Tovim and Alan Lockwood at Huddersfield Polytechnic and with Peter Lloyd at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She completed her studies at the National Centre for Orchestral Studies. Sarah is a Licensed Body Mapping Educator teaching the art of movement in music.
Philippa Davies
Location: London, UK
Instrument: Flute
Bachelor of Music (Hons)
Associate of the Royal College of Music
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2014
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Website: www.gsmd.ac.uk/youth_adult_learning/short_courses_summer_schools/music/music_theory_musicianship/body_mapping
Contact: philippa.davies@gsmd.ac.uk
Philippa Davies has established an international reputation as one of the finest flautists currently performing. A “first-rate virtuoso,” with “exceptional eloquence," she has been noted for an “almost electrical response to technique.” She studied at the Royal College of Music with Douglas Whittaker and later William Bennett, and made her debut in the 1977 BBC Proms followed in 1988 by Mozart’s D major concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
As a chamber musician Philippa became a member of the Albion Ensemble, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s ensemble The Fires of London, and now is busy with London Winds and the Nash Ensemble, with whom she has pioneered first performances, made several recordings, and appeared throughout the world. As a recitalist, she has performed internationally, giving masterclasses and broadcasts. Her duo partners are Jan Willem Nelleke (piano) and Maggie Cole (harpsichord), and she has regularly appeared with Marisa Robles, Julian Bream, Pascal Roge, Barry Douglas, YoYo Ma, and Stephen Kovacevich.
Philippa’s numerous recordings include Mozart’s entire original concertos and quartets and Bach’s Flute Sonatas; she has also recorded a 20th century wind quintet disc with London Winds for Chandos. As a freelance player, she regularly plays guest principal flute with many of the main London orchestras: the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, and the English Chamber Orchestra.
Philippa teaches the flute at the Guildhall School of Music and more recently has taken part in the “Reflective Conservatoire” conference at the Barbican, London as well as “Innovative Conservatoire” Seminars in Finland.
After attending Summerflute 2007, she has become a Licensed Body Mapping Educator giving individual Body Mapping lessons and master classes.
Each summer she runs her own highly regarded International Flute Course at Benslow, North London as well as a course in Cubertou, France and in Aberystwyth, Wales.
Alison Wells
Location: Glasgow, UK
Instrument: Cello
DMA, Yale School of Music
Recital Diploma, Royal Academy of Music
M.A Cambridge University
Associate of the Royal Academy of Music
Licensed Body Mapping Educator, 2022
First British string player to be accredited as a Licensed Body Mapping Educator
Available for: Workshops, individual lessons
Contact: alisonwells455@gmail.com
Alison Wells has had a varied career as a chamber musician that has taken her throughout
Europe and North America, to Asia, and to Africa. She was a founding member of the UK-based
Pirasti Trio, whose performances were described as "absolutely incandescent" (The Strad) and
"eloquent, unfailingly stylish" (Gramophone), and whose recordings on ASV were recommended
by BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, International Record Review, and Fanfare. She has
broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, Dutch National Radio, the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation, North German Radio, and WQXR in New York. She was also featured in a British
Channel 4 TV documentary on the Chamber Music of Penderecki, working with the composer.
Alison is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, studying with
Ralph Kirshbaum and David Strange. She holds a doctorate from Yale University, where she
studied with Aldo Parisot as a Harkness Fellow. In 1988 she joined the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra, under Simon Rattle, and became an Associate of the Royal Academy of
Music. The following year she gave her London recital debut at the South Bank, sponsored by
the Maisie Lewis Young Artists' Trust.
Alison is a sought-after cello teacher who has given masterclasses worldwide. A former faculty
member of the Peabody Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music in the USA, and of
Trinity Laban, the Purcell School, and Wells Cathedral School in the UK, she currently teaches at
the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She has performed and taught at numerous international
festivals, including return visits for many summers to the Heifetz Institute, ENCORE School for
Strings, and Madeline Island Chamber Music Festival in the USA. She continues to serve on the
faculties of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, USA, and of Encore Music
Projects in the UK. She has had a long interest in the benefits of somatic training for musicians,
and in 2022 she became the first British string player to qualify as a Licensed Body Mapping
Educator.
