Strawberry Music undertakes a wide range of activities including individual and group instrumental tuition through to whole class ‘First Access’ lessons. We also organise and run a number of local ensembles from string and wind groups through to symphony orchestra training and direction. We often work in partnership with other arts organisations in order to ensure the best match of expertise to the activity concerned.
Walter Brewster
Walter studied at the Royal College of Music with Sidney Fell where he won the coveted Frederick Thurston Prize for Clarinet. A period at the National Centre for Orchestral Studies led to playing with some of the world’s great conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel. This led to regular engagements with the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras. In recent years Walter has played clarinet and bass clarinet with the Bournemouth Symphony and Royal Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra.
As a soloist he has performed at the Harrogate, Winchester and Fakenham festivals and particularly enjoys performing chamber music. In recent years he has performed the Mozart, Brahms and Weber clarinet quintets at the St. Stephen’s May Festival. A number of composers have written works especially for him including Martin Butler, Avril Anderson, Stephen Solloway and Rick Birley.
Walter is also active as a pianist, accompanying pupils and performance groups. He has a particularly strong interest in 19th century piano music and the golden age of pianists from that era until the present day. In his educational work Walter was Deputy Head of Service for Dorset Music Service and Director of Dorset Youth Orchestra for a number of years.
Jane Bultz
Jane studied for 4 years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Suzanne Rozsa and Isabelle Flory, gaining Diplomas in Performing and Teaching.
After leaving the Guildhall, Jane became a Professor of Violin at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and pursued a career in teaching and freelance playing. Jane has taught extensively in both the independent and public sectors with pupils gaining success in examinations. Some students have gone on to pursue a career in music as teachers and professional musicians and most recently two of her pupils were successful in gaining places at the world famous Yehudi Menhuin School.
She plays regularly in chamber music recitals and symphonic concerts and leads a local amateur orchestra with whom she has performed solo works. Being a practising musician is important to Jane as she considers that the experience gained as a performer is invaluable to good teaching practice
Together we are currently a provider for the Bournemouth Music Education Hub – SoundStorm and the Bournemouth based Wave Arts Agency
Walter is also a practitioner for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s Participate department and is a regular contributor to their education work.
From 2011-2020 we have delivered individual and group tuition across a wide range of schools in Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole. We have also provided ‘First Access’ whole class tuition on recorder, clarinet, flute and saxophone through our partners at SoundStorm, the Bournemouth Music Education Hub.
Our values are centred on excellence in all the areas in which we operate. Strawberry Music practitioners are described as Teaching Artists as we strongly believe that musicians with professional performance experience make some of the best teachers.
We feel it is vital that young people have a ‘real world’ experience of music-making in which performance is a key activity. Our lessons for both individuals and whole classes never seek to categorise music, we simply believe in good music, whatever the genre.
Our ‘First Access’ lessons are supported by online materials that provide music and backing tracks to encourage practice between weekly lessons.
We believe strongly in the power of music to change lives. To this end we seek to provide a balance of technical control and musical awareness that can serve a child across a lifetime of music. It is always our aim to encourage musical inquisitiveness and an intelligent approach to music-making that will assist pupils to become independent learners.