Feldenkrais

Dr. Rachel White Galvin is a movement specialist, freelance musician, and founder of MindFelt Methods. She holds a Doctorate in Viola Performance, and is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, USA Weightlifting level 1 coach, Certified Foundation Training Instructor, and former CrossFit Level 2 Trainer. She combines her passion for music, fitness, and movement into working with musicians and non-musicians in pain.

Do you experience pain and tension while you play? Has nothing seemed to help? Join us for this introduction to the Feldenkrais Method with Dr. Rachel White Galvin. You will get a glimpse into how simple, easy movement can help relieve tension, ease your playing-related pain, improve your mood, hone your self-awareness, and optimize your playing. To fully experience this class you will need a large enough area on the floor to lie down fully and comfortable clothing.

Tai Chi

Cellist Sarah Kapps is widely known for her versatility as a musician, her passion as an educator, and her skill as a performer. Not limited to a single career track, she has embraced the role of independent artist, while championing both old and very new music. As a Philadelphia native, Sarah now makes Atlanta her home. She teaches cello as an Artist Affiliate at Georgia State University, and has enjoyed the honor of performing with the Atlanta Symphony, Ballet, and Opera Orchestras as a substitute. She is also a long time Wintergreen Festival Artist.

Her degrees are from Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music. During Covid she has had the time to pursue two lifelong goals: to revive her tai chi training from years earlier; and to become a full-fledged cat lady - trapping and neutering a feral colony in her neighborhood. 

Pilates

Eva Stern is a violist and a comprehensively trained Pilates teacher with a specialty in working with musicians.  She is a member of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and has performed with numerous other orchestras including the Saint Louis Symphony and Detroit Symphony. As a Pilates and movement teacher, she works with students at the high school and university levels and with professional players from orchestras across the country. Historically the Pilates Method is strongly connected to dance, and it connects beautifully with the performance of music as well. This class will focus on using the basic principles of Pilates to create greater awareness, elasticity and equilibrium in the body. We will learn how to create a balanced movement practice, touching upon all of the planes of movement (forward, backward, side bending and rotation) to increase flexibility and endurance. These movements will be combined with effective breathing techniques to bring an enhanced sense of ease and vibrancy to your playing.

Body Mapping

William Johnston is a violist and Licensed Body Mapping Educator. As a teacher, he specializes in making the connection between beautiful movement and beautiful music. William is principal violist of The Atlanta Opera and earned his DMA at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In his spare time he enjoys learning Aikido and “exercising” his extremely lazy hound dog.

Your body map is a self-representation in your brain of your body and how it moves. If your map is accurate and sufficiently detailed, congratulations! However if you’re like many of us, you might have developed some inaccuracies or gray areas in your map which result in movement that is less efficient and may result in pain or musculo-skeletal injuries. During this session, you’ll learn about some of the most common mismappings musicians have, as well as effective and fun strategies for correcting them.

Alexander Technique

 I feel taller! My shoulders feel looser! My headache is better! It feels easier to breathe!  These are some of the things students say after their first Alexander Technique lesson.

With more awareness, you have more choice--more choice in how you respond to the stresses of life, more choice in how you move and think, more choice in how you want to be in the world. Because of the mind-body connection, the physical changes that you make will also help you on other levels: Physical Ease = Mental Ease, A Flexible Body = A Flexible Mind, An Open Body = An Open Heart.

Lilly Sutton has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 2007. She has master's degree in educational psychology. As an outgrowth of her background in the healing arts, Lilly also interweaves guided meditation, emotional intelligence skills, and other mind-body practices into her work. She teaches mindfulness at the State Prison and does leadership coaching for MBA students. She enjoys singing, writing songs, poetry, and baking home-made crackers. 

Myofascial Release

Kayleigh Miller is a violist and movement educator based in Seattle, WA. She's currently a member of the Pacific Northwest Ballet and a regular substitute with the Seattle Symphony, and is formerly a member of the San Antonio Symphony.  She teaches pilates, strength training, and yoga in Seattle to both musicians and non-musicians, and is passionate about helping people move better in their day to day lives. Kayleigh additionally founded the Musician's Health Collective, a blog on anatomy, movement and musician health.

In this session, we'll explore how to do myofascial release work at home, with small grippy, pliable balls. While most people are familiar with foam rolling for myofascial work, we can also use smaller, cost effective, and more portable tools to achieve the same results. Self-massage can be a great tool in your self-care toolbox and can improve your bodily awareness, address any areas of discomfort, and help with recovery after playing. We'll also explore pain science and how to identify productive discomfort as opposed to pain while rolling. For this session, you'll need at least one ball, either a Pinky Ball or Yoga Tune Up ball, and either a book or yoga block.