The Slapin-Solomon Duo

We are now just over 6 weeks from the time we set sail on the Queen Mary 2!

There's still SO much to do. This week I'll share with you just how difficult it is to organize everything for…

This week I'm going to concentrate on HOW we got our visas to go the UK. Every country has its own types of visas that are available for those looking to move permanently. We did A LOT of research to…

Once we had decided on England, we needed to pick a city. Not easy, as there are lot of good candidates to choose from! 

Most English cities have most of what we're looking for in a place to live. The…

It took a long time to decide what we wanted in a place and what our options really were. We had some false starts. Almost 3 1/2 years ago we applied to Canada on their self-employment visa, and we still…

Welcome to our blog! We teach viola and violin lessons around the world via Skype. This is the first post in a series about our upcoming move to England, and we hope you'll follow us here on our adventure!

More…

Tanya and I have been teaching viola lessons online via Skype since 2011. At this point, the vast majority of our studio is entirely online, and we've gotten to meet viola players (and even a few violin players) on five…

Over forty years ago, Barbara Barstow started me on violin (and later converted me to viola!) in her home teaching studio in Belle Mead, New Jersey. Barbara was also the conductor of many of the orchestras at the New Jersey…

1520's and 1620's: Doubling Choirs

During the first 200 years of the viola's existence, it was doing mostly what it was invented to do: doubling vocal parts. Now, more than 500 years later, many believe the viola is still the…

Originally posted on 1/3/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to being the American Viola Society's artist in residence for the next couple of months. I'm supposed to write a new blog post…

from an earlier post:

Tanya and I used to live in New Orleans. A week after our duo CD Sketches from the New World was released-- and before we could have the CD release party-- Hurricane Katrina hit, and the…

from an earlier post:

As a young teenager, I wrote orchestral music that was performed in my home state of New Jersey by the Philharmonic of New Jersey, the Hunterdon Symphony, the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and the Brunswick Symphony…

Originally posted on 2/28/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

Classical musicians and audiences often see things differently. In my experience, audiences love the viola. These are people who (probably in most cases) didn't attend conservatory to study an…

Originally posted on 2/21/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

It was around a decade ago that I first heard about the possibility of taking viola lessons via Skype. Once I thought about it a bit and saw the…

Originally posted on 2/14/20 as 'Artist-in-Residence' for the American Viola Society:

I have spent a bit of time in different musical worlds, and I've noticed that those who primarily spend time in only one or two of them tend to…