Renaud Capuçon
I wish I had started to teach sooner. Helping my students look at their problems in a different way, I can hear myself repeating advice I was given 20 years ago. I’m 43 now and for the five years I’ve been teaching I’ve been digging around inside my brain and revealing information I’d forgotten was there. Some of it didn’t necessarily make sense at the time but revisiting it has helped me understand its worth. Adapting what I learnt in order to take account of someone’s physical characteristics – the size of their hands, for example – is another route to seeing things afresh, and I’m always thanking my students for helping me to make progress myself.
My teacher Veda Reynolds took a global view of what it meant to be a violinist. She was a quartet player who studied with Flesch, Galamian, Enescu and Zimbalist. I began to study with her when I was 8 years old and stayed with her until I was 20. She had a very open mind, always challenging her own preconceptions as well as those of her pupils. She would never just tell me which fingering I should use, for example. Instead she’d get me to play through two or three alternatives and choose which one I felt worked best. Learning at only 10 or 11 that there isn’t always one correct way to do something was very inspiring.