Fairbanks Suzuki Institute

It's almost time! See you on the UAF campus May 26th!

Registration for 2026 Fairbanks Suzuki Institute is NOW OPEN! 🥳

We can't wait to see you on the UAF campus May 26 - May 31, 2026! Registration deadline is March 15, 2026

REGISTER today!
https://fsialaska.org/

FSI 2025 Day 2? Fabulous!! 🤩

What a beautiful day for music, learning and fun!

From inspiring classes to stellar performances, today was full of Suzuki spirit.

Thanks to our amazing faculty, hard-working students and supportive families for making it all so special. We can’t wait for more tomorrow!

Here we goooo! FSI 2025 is off to a fantastic start! Huge thanks to everyone who joined us at the potluck tonight - great food, great company and no rain!

We can’t wait for our first full day of classes tomorrow.

Let’s make it a week full of music, learning and fun!

Subscribe to our FSI YouTube channel to watch our live recital performances starting tomorrow at 12:45 p.m.

https://youtube.com/?si=HjBp_ojqZAz6ilfU

We are *so excited* to announce that registration for Fairbanks Suzuki Institute is NOW OPEN! 🥳

We can't wait to see you on the UAF campus May 28 - June 2, 2024!

Registration deadline is March 1, 2024

Check out our ✨brand new✨ website at:
https://fsialaska.org/

A beautiful article written for the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer by Kris Capps:

Peggy Swartz’s cello students never forgot her, or her husband Jerry Swartz.



When Jerry died back in November, some of her former students asked Peggy if they could perform a concert at Raven Landing and dedicate it to her late husband. Peggy agreed and the concert took place on Sunday, Dec. 17.



Those young cello students are now all adult cello players. In a tribute to the Swartzes, Rebecca Levey, mother of two of the cellists, described the grown musicians as “young men who are airplane pilots, boat captains, mechanics, guides, managers, birders, naturalists, and yes — cellists.”



When those cellists were little boys, they took their first lessons from Peggy Swartz or as Levey explained, the Swartzes “adopted our family into their A-frame Music Studio on Yankovich.”



A big draw for those feisty boys was the airplane that Jerry was building in the basement.



“My then four-year-old son was sold on the spot with music lessons, if every week it involved a tour with Jerry, of progress on the plane,” Levey said.



Jerry and Peggy Swartz were both pilots, After every cello lesson, the young boys would help pound rivets on the fuselage, in places adult hands couldn’t reach.



Jerry was a biology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and knew all about birds and animals — including the “falcons that lived in the house” and the quail that lived in the basement.



“When our younger cellist son began catching voles as pets, Jerry, forever the researcher and faculty, saw an opportunity and gave us two glass terrariums so we could ‘study’ these creatures more easily,” Levey said. “Once, we found a dead redpoll and Jerry helped us with bird taxidermy. It was our first time stuffing an animal and granted, it looked like it had been through a very bad hurricane.”



He also encouraged the boys to obtain a grouse carcass, boil the meat off and then rebuild the skeleton,



“Again,” Levey said. “Thank you Jerry. Yes, we totally did it. Do you have any idea how many pieces there are to a grouse skeleton and there are no numbers on them. You cannot look at the back of the box to find all of the border pieces and work in from there.”



It was clear, she said, that her own boys Mac and Van, benefitted from time with both Peggy and Jerry.



But back to cello lessons.



“They may look like fine musicians now, but they were pretty busy little boys,” Peggy Swartz said.



Levey offered this example: “Because a bathroom break is half the length of a cello lesson for a five-year-old, and because music lessons require stillness to a degree, my boys piled out of the car on Yankovich at the head of the drive, ran into the woods and peed, and then ran like heck to beat the car to Peggy’s porch — an attempt at expending excess energy and preparing, if at all possible, for success.”



She usually found them in Jerry’s office, waiting for their lesson, and fascinated by his typewriter and everything else Jerry shared with them.



It wasn’t always easy keeping those boys focused on practicing. At one point, Peggy told the frustrated mother: “We don’t know that these boys will be cellists. We can’t know that. But we can know one thing — they are and will always be boys. You are teaching boys. Cello is just the content.”



Mac and Van Levey both graduated from universities where they majored in music and they are both talented cellists. It’s clear from this concert that the other boys continued playing cello as well. All five of these cellists went on to become part of the core group of the Alaska Cello Intensive.



“I never intended that all my students be professional musicians,” said Peggy, who taught music for about 60 years. “Some did, but many more did not.”



One thing that did appear to stick, however, was their appreciation for music.



“Suzuki students learn some discipline and I think that serves them well in other endeavors,” she said.



After all those students and all those years “I gained as much as they did, I think,” she said.



That special concert on Dec. 17 made her feel like she did something useful with her life, she said, adding, “I thought it was very nice.”



The concert offered a variety of classical pieces, including one Peggy requested: Requiem Op.66 for Three Cellos and Piano.



“It was written by a famous cellist and cello teacher, as a tribute to a friend of his who had died,” Peggy said.



The first tune that all Suzuki students learn is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”



“That’s always in all the concerts and generally it’s the last tune they play,” Peggy said. “It’s something they can all do together, of all ages.”



So of course, the last song performed at the Raven Landing concert was “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”



The cellists included Cirdan Vonnahme, Joshua Swank, Hank Zacheis, Mac Levey and Van Levey. Pianists were visiting musicians Frank Huang and Laura Shen.



Reach columnist/community editor Kris Capps at [email protected]. Follow her at Twitter.com/FDNMKris.

Hey FSI 2023 families!

We have a few “lost and found” items that turned up after our week at Institute. Let us know if you are missing something! 🧐

Congratulations to these Suzuki graduates! Thank you for your outstanding performances and hard work and dedication.🥳

(And thank you Safeway for donating this delicious cake!) 🍰

Join us TONIGHT at 7:00pm in UAF Davis Concert Hall for a special concert by our Fairbanks Suzuki Institute faculty.

It’s going to be wonderful!!

Free and open to the public - bring your friends!