Workshops
Registration for Fall 2026 Workshops is now open!
Performer's Lab
Faculty: Aenea Mizushima Keyes
Dates: October 25 & November 8, 2026
Location: San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Room 507
Cost: $200
Prepare for your next performance at the interactive Performer’s Lab!
Coach and instructor, Aenea Mizushima Keyes, leads the Performer’s Lab! with exercises and related discussion topics to explore creative flow and expressive performance. Gently explore easing tension while testing new skills inside a SFCM Classroom and Recital Hall! Continue engaging in the Performer’s Lab! workshop’s innovative performance suggestions by actively listening to classmates during coached performance explorations. Additionally, this unique workshop supports CE performers by offering two in-person sessions before the CE Fall Solo Recital on November 15, 2026. Sessions are Sunday October 25, 2:00-5:00pm and Sunday November 8, 2:00-4:00pm. New and returning students learn together through discussion, explorations, and engaged listening. Performance is encouraged; not required.
- Classroom: Session 1 – Prepare to Perform (October 25, 3 hours) - A time to meet your instructor and workshop colleagues, as well as share performance experiences and goals. In simple yet effective exercises led by your instructor, explore Mindful Awareness, Mindful Listening, and Performance Awareness. Through discussion, explore key workshop concepts, practice strategies, and sustainable next steps. Test new skills by informally playing-out a work-in-progress from recital, chamber music, symphonic, or other rep. All workshop participants are encouraged to engage in group discussion and supportive listening.
- Recital Hall: Session 2 – Dress Rehearsal (November 8, 2 hours) - Workshop participants are invited to play out a work-in-progress inside the Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall. Apply new skills with coached on-stage exploration to expand Performance Awareness. Continue to gain insights and deepen understanding by actively listening while colleagues perform. Expressive possibilities of a performance space are explored alongside techniques for replacing tension with creative flow. Engage in a simple structured group improvisation to further explore Performance Awareness. Share workshop and performance discoveries. Review exercises and sustainable next steps. Time for a wrap-up discussion with feedback.
All instruments and levels are welcome; performance is not required; new and returning students learn together through discussion, explorations, and listening.
Faculty
SFCM instructor and coach, Aenea Mizushima Keyes, brings over 20 years of coaching experience to her work with students and professionals. Her international performances include innovative work as a soloist, chamber musician, and violinist-composer, and tours in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Japan. Aenea’s improvised compositions inspired by visual art have been showcased by the SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum, the Oakland Museum, and London’s British Museum. Recordings as violinist and founding member of MusicAEterna include “Seasons” and “At the Museum,” featuring Aenea’s original compositions and MusicAEterna’s signature ChamberImprov. Aenea has also premiered works at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, including Carman Moore’s Mass for the 21st Century. M.M., National Academy of Music, Bulgaria; B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, USA.
Ready, Set, Go!
This workshop is currently not available for registration.
Faculty: Pasha Sabouri and Mimi Zweig
Dates: NA
Location: NA
This unique workshop is designed to help violinists and violists explore musical development through the understanding of tension and release. Over the course of this 3-day workshop, participants will learn how to help you guide your students towards artistry, with a more natural approach to playing. Be ready to try out the teaching techniques, and come away with new concepts and tools for your studio. We encourage all teachers to bring your students or videos for personalized feedback!
- 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM - A time to engage in lectures and discussions on key topics.
- 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM - Hands-on application of key topics discussed in the morning session.
- Key Topics include:
- Understanding and mastering tension and release in playing
- Tone
- Set-up technique
- Shifting, vibrato, bow strokes
- Scale sequence
- Etude sequence
- Selected repertoire for beginning, intermediate, and advanced level students
Reserve your spot soon!
This special workshop is limited to 30 teachers to ensure an intimate and focused learning environment to all.
If you have any questions, please contact the Continuing Education Office at
pbagvahvatrq@fspz.rqhude.mcfs@degniunitnoc
.
Faculty
Pasha Sabouri is one of the most sought-after and respected American violin pedagogues of the new generation. He has performed in recitals and concerts in Holland, Sweden, Austria, Germany, UK, throughout the United States and Canada. A passionate educator and a published author whose acclaimed book "Upbeat" guides middle and high school students and their families on the road to professional musical education and career. His students are competing and featured in such competitions and media outlets as Menuhin Competition, Sphinx Competition, Dallas Symphony’s Lynn Harrell Competition, ENKOR Competition, and NPR's From The Top, winning the coveted "Jack Kent Cooke" Award.
Pasha Sabouri is the founder and Artistic Director of the Texas Strings Festival, and it’s affiliate Master Series - a year-round educational initiative which provides the students with extraordinary opportunity to be guided and inspired by leading musicians of the day. Throughout the years the students of TSF have had the privilege to work with such luminaries as Miriam Fried, Vadim Gluzman, Paul Kantor, Ida Kavafian, Jan Mark Sloman, Jinjoo Cho, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg, Robin Wilson, Grigory Kalinovsky and William Hagen. He is also the founder and leader of Teachers’ Lounge – an online teachers collective designed to support and empower his colleagues with innovative ways of teaching and studio development.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dr. Sabouri is currently violin faculty at UCSB and is Head of Strings at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College. He has also had the privilege to serve as Adjunct Professor at Concordia College as well as Artistic Director at the Concordia College Music Academy in Austin, Texas. Prior to this position, he was appointed Lecturer Violin Professor at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, and has also been faculty at Encore Chamber Music Institute, Omaha Conservatory of Music Institute, the Brian Lewis Young Artist Program, and has adjudicated at Carnegie Hall NYO/2 program, Jack McGehee and UT Concerto Competitions.
Pasha Sabouri has appeared as a soloist at the opening of the Edinburgh Festival, performed with the Texas Chamber Orchestra, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Henderson Symphony, and the Ottawa Sinfonette. He was awarded the first prize at the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Competition, and was named National Finalist for Music Teachers National Association, The Texas Young Artist, and the Coeur D’Alene Competitions.
Mimi Zweig is professor of music in violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and director of the Indiana University String Academy. She joined the Jacobs School of Music faculty in 1976.
Zweig studied with Louis Krasner, Samuel Kissel, Raphael Bronstein, and Tadeusz Wroński. She has been a member of the Syracuse Symphony, American Symphony under Leopold Stokowski, and Indianapolis Symphony. She has developed pre-college string programs across the United States since 1972.
Zweig has given master classes and pedagogy workshops in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Israel, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and throughout Europe. Her innovative web-based teaching tool, Mimi Zweig StringPedagogy.com, is accessed worldwide.
American Public Television released the Emmy-nominated documentary Circling Around—The Violin Virtuosi, featuring IU String Academy students, in spring 2006.
In 2019, Zweig was the recipient of the American String Teachers Association Artist Teacher Award. Her students have won numerous competitions and teach and perform worldwide.