The beginning of SAU
In the early 1970s, The Suzuki Education Program introduced the Suzuki Association of Utah (SAU) to Utah. Steven Goodman, a Suzuki educator in Provo, Utah, started the Goodman School of Music, which has since disbanded.
On July 14, 1977, they organized the Utah Talent Education Guild to help Utah Suzuki teachers grow in Talent Education, encourage private teaching, and build their individual Suzuki studios. Later, they changed the organization’s name to the Suzuki Association of Utah.
How we have grown!
The SAU has grown significantly from the original 17 teachers and a few hundred students to nearly 200 teachers serving 2,000 students. Moreover, they have expanded their instruction offerings beyond violin, piano, cello, and flute to include harp, viola, guitar, pre-school, voice, string bass, and, most recently, trumpet. Consequently, the Suzuki Association of Utah has become one of the leading state affiliate chapters of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. Furthermore, the Suzuki teachers, parents, and students in Utah demonstrate a successful collaboration across the many facets of the local Suzuki community.
There are three Teacher Trainers with the Suzuki Association of the Americas residing in Utah as members of the SAU.
- Piano: Cleo Brimhall
- Cello: Carey Cheney
- Viola (early violin books): Denise Willey
For further information on training to be a teacher in the Suzuki Method please contact these trainers directly.
Summer Institutes
Summer Institutes have attracted many of the foremost Suzuki educators to Utah. Annually, they hold these Institutes to enrich and train teachers, parents, and students in Suzuki pedagogy and repertoire. For instance, Cleo Brimhall established and directed the Intermountain Suzuki Institute (ISI) in Salt Lake City in 1978. This Institute served violin, viola, cello, piano, flute, harp, guitar, and voice students from across the United States and Canada. Additionally, the Institute used venues at university campuses stretching from northern to southern Utah. However, in 1994, the Institute split into two separate organizations.
Though SAU doesn’t have it’s own institute, string teachers and families now study at the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute (ISSI) held every June at Juan Diego High School in Draper, UT. ISSI now hosts violin, viola, cello, bass, trumpet, and guitar programs. Over 500 students regularly attend the institute each summer, making it the largest summer Suzuki program in the world.
Directors: Lauren Posey
The Intermountain Suzuki Institute continued serving teachers and families for all other instruments. Eventually ISSI separated into two Institutes, one for piano, flute, guitar and voice and the other for harp students.
Harp students study at Utah Suzuki Harp Institute in Logan, Utah.
Director: Melanie Harper
Workshops and Concerts
The SAU sponsors Suzuki workshops, including international Suzuki piano workshops featuring Dr. Haruko Kataoka. As the director of the piano department at the Talent Education Research Institute in Matsumoto, Japan, Dr. Kataoka leads these workshops. Dr. Shinichi Suzuki founded the Talent Education Research Institute in 1951. Consequently, these workshops attract people from all over the world, eager to learn from this master teacher.
SAU Celebration Concerts, formally held tri-annually, and now every five years, have been inspirational as the entire student body of Suzuki students in Utah gather together to perform Suzuki repertoire and other pieces both in their instrument groups and in collaboration with other Suzuki method instruments. They have held concerts in Abravanel Hall, the Capitol Theatre, the Rotunda of the State Capitol, and Historic Temple Square. SAU hosted Celebration Gala Concerts held in the LDS Conference Center in 2004, 2007, 2010, 2015, and 2020. The next Celebration year begins in August 2025. Celebration events will take place from then until May 2026.