About the Author

Denise Willey, a trained Suzuki teacher in violin, viola, cello, bass, is an SAA Registered Teacher Trainer, and has taught strings for 42 years. She has conducted school, community and student orchestras for 37 years, where she has taught literally (no pun intended!) hundreds of children to read music. She has also taught music pedagogy at Brigham Young University. Mrs. Willey was honored by being selected "Private Music Teacher of the Year 1996" by the Utah Chapter of the America String Teachers Association. Her six children, now ages 17-27, all studied Suzuki, violin, viola, cello, bass, piano, and and four also studied Suzuki Organ. All six are now string teachers themselves. In 1987, Mrs. Willey founded the "Lyceum Chamber Ensemble," and is now the director of the American Heritage Lyceum Prep Orchestra program. The LCE has performed side by side with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, and was one of the only children's orchestras to perform at the 2005 ASTA National Conference in Reno. She has served for over 15 years as a Board Vice President for the Suzuki Association of Utah. Cathy Wilson is a Renaissance woman. A longtime writer with several published books to her name, she also frequently has publications in poetry and creative nonfiction. After several years of teaching college writing, she became a public-school art teacher, teaching junior-high art in the morning and writing and art in juvenile corrections in the afternoon. A visual artist herself, Wilson works in watercolor and oils-and drawing the occasional cartoon, as in this book. In addition, Wilson plays recorder in the Castle Country Consort, playing SAT, although now she needs to use Mrs. Willey's method to learn B! The consort is currently working on Bach's "Fugue in A Minor after Vivaldi." She hosts hand-drum building workshops at Helper Junior High and is trained as a Drum Circle Facilitator. A lifetime dancer, she recently appeared in a YouTube video with her daughter, Miriam, a modern-dance choreographer. Wilson is the mother of nine grown children, most of whom studied strings with Mrs. Willey when the children were small. Three of them are successful in the music field. She lives in high-desert Utah with her husband Russell, chair of the music department at College of Eastern Utah; at present, she is fascinated with making Waldorf dolls for her many grandchildren.