I’m joined by my colleague in Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, violinist Frédéric Moisan. Originally from the Breton town of Saint-Brieuc in France, he immigrated to Finland and then Canada. In this wide-ranging conversation we talked about wind-surfing,family, languages, different cultures’ approaches to education, the challenges of playing the violin, the original version of the Sibelius violin concerto (which was the subject of Fred’s Doctoral Dissertation), life balance, and fly fishing. We talked about the differences between being a freelancer to being an orchestra member; Fred has great advice for colleagues and students preparing auditions, and you can find these various topics in the timestamps.

Immanuel Abraham is a very special musican, who is an inspiring violinist, educator and composer. His phenomenal talent, discipline and creativity is even more inspiring since he didn’t have an opportunity to learn a musical instrument until the age of 14 and 4 years later, he was auditioning for the renowned University of Michigan in violin performance, playing the same Paganini caprice he’d heard Ithak Perlman play on Shalom Sesame as a child. He speaks candidly in this interview about his perseverence in the face of very difficult challenges. He’s well-known on social media as The Violin Doctor, which is a Dr. Who reference, but Immanuel actually is Doctor of Musical Arts, awarded from the University of Arizona. When he was a student, in an effort to learn as much as he could that was violin-related, he started The Violin Guild which is an amazingly supportive Facebook group of over 60,000 string players worldwide. Our conversation focused on different aspects of music education, personal development, and you’ll get to hear some clips of Immanuel performing some of his 24 Caprices for solo violin. I