Teaching Mind and Body
This is a podcast about teaching, but it’s also about neuroscience, psychology and body movement as it relates to how music is taught and played. One of the many goals is to provide food for thought; to challenge current thinking, to expand horizons for furthering our understanding of how we acquire and conceptualize music. We have sought to bring a wide range of diverse perspectives from extraordinary professionals and legendary musicians from around the world. Many of whom I have personally gained enormous amounts of insight from over the years. Our goal is to provide teachers, musicians and students access to information, musical knowledge and wisdom that they might not normally have. Please join us on our exploration of better music education.
Episodes
14 episodes
Episode 13: Violinist Marieke DeBruijn
Marieke DeBruijn is a Dutch violinist and is the leader and founder of the Dutch String Collective, an active performing organization that does concert series and theater type productions. In this interview, We got a chance to talk about cultur...
Episode 12: Jesus Florido part 2
In part 2 we talk about more people in Jesus's life who helped shape his career, including his friendships with legendary violinists like Jean luc Ponty, Mark O’Connor, and the great jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. we touch upon his practice...
Episode 11: Jesus Florido part 1
Happy 2026! In this episode I interview Grammy award winning and Latin Grammy nominated Venezualan violinist, Jesus Florido. We talk about his formative years, his training in the legendary musical education program "El Sistema" of which ...
Episode 10 : April Choi on the Tightrope
In this episode, we welcome back April Choi to talk about the skill of tightrope/ and slack line. She holds a Guinness book of world’s records for the most whip cracks while standing on a slack line. I found myself comparing violin playing meta...
Episode 9: Dr. Jan Svennevig, professor of Linguistics.
In this episode I interview Dr. Jan Svennevig who is a professor of linguistics and a prolific researcher and publisher of numerous papers and articles on various aspects of communication. He has taught at the university of Oslo and his c...
Episode 8: April Choi
In this episode, we talk to Nasa aerospace engineer, world famous Whip artist and mutliple Guiness world record holder April Choi. We discuss her motivations, her career, her learning methods, and her feelings about being a performer as well as...
Episode 7: Dr. Frida Forsgren
Today's guest is associate professor of Art History Dr. Frida Forsgren at The University of Agder in Kristiansand Norway. She is a notable art history scholar, author of books and has numerous published articles on the subject. She teaches a co...
episode 6: interview with Derek Reeves
In this episode, we speak with violist Derek Reeves He is currently principal violist of the Fort Wayne symphony in Fort Wayne Indiana and teaches at The Purdue University Fort Wayne School of Music as well as serving as viola faculty at ...
Episode 5: interview with Dr. Laurie Barron
In this episode, I interview Dr. Laurie Barron. She is an award winning super intendant of the Evergreen School District, in Kalispell Montana. She is a former English teacher, former middle school principal, an author, a motivational speaker a...
Episode 4: Interview with Shmuel Ashkenasi
In this episode, I talk with one of my former violin teachers, Shmuel Ashkenasi. Throughout his career he distinguished himself as an extraordinary soloist and during his time in the Vermeer Quartet as one of the greatest chamber musicians of o...
Teaching Mind and Body: August 9th 2025 progress so far
Just wanted to say thanks for all the support in helping make this podcast a great success, fill the listeners in on the progress so far and wanted to say a little about the upcoming episodes.
Episode 3: Roberto Diaz
In this episode we talk with world renowned violist, and Grammy Award winner, Roberto Diaz. We discuss his musical education, his music career as a soloist, a teacher and principal violist in the Philadelphia orchestra, he also shares his insig...
episode 2: the importance of sharing information
Kristian Svennevig is joined by long time friend and colleague Dr. Sara Wandrei Langmead to discuss her backgroud and philosophy of education and why it's important to provide everyone access to information. touching on topics like why it's imp...
Teaching Mind and Body Episode 1: What is this podcast all about?
Host, Kristian Svennevig, a graduate of The University of Wisconsin, Madison, draws upon the wealth of knowledge gained from 30 + years of classroom teaching as an Orchestra teacher and more than 47 years as a violinist. He also brings th...