My relationship with Suzuki has been long-standing... 

Minda Cowen started playing the violin at age four with the Suzuki method. In college, she won the Culley Concerto Competition at Dartmouth College and then transferred to Sarah Lawrence, where she won the Sarah Lawrence Concerto Competition, and was concertmaster of the Sarah Lawrence Orchestra.

Since then, she  has done various eclectic things with the violin, the most recent, a solo performance at Birdland with jazz  pianist and vocalist Rick DellaRatta in a benefit concert supporting research to find a cure for histiocytosis. Other favorites include being the music director of an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Williamstown Theater Festival, directed by Neel Keller; composing and performing music live for a WBAI radio play, and creating/performing  music for dance performances at the Joyce Soho and Angel Orensantz Foundation. She also composed and performed music for her own multi-media play, Persephone, that was produced at the Kitchen. She played in an Irish rock band, The Prodigals, which performed in and around the NYC area and at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas at Yale University.

Currently Minda teaches Suzuki violin group classes at PS41, (made possible through a 'Save the Music Grant' from  VH1) and at the after-school music program. She lives in the West Village with her norwich terrier, Jpeg, who immensely enjoys getting treats from all her students.

 Minda received her BA from Sarah Lawrence in music and playwriting, and holds a M.S. from ITP, Tisch School of the Arts. She got her Suzuki violin teachers certification at the School for Strings, and is currently working on her Masters in violin performance at the Steinhardt School of NYU. She has studied with Niccole Di Cecco, Sabina Skala, Anna Pelek, Sung Rai Sohn, and Ann Setzer.