When Padraig∅n Cooney began bringing her five-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, to violin classes in Cork, there had to be a little bit of gentle persuasion. "A few sweets!" is how Elizabeth remembers it.
"I think the bribes lasted for about three years," she admits. "I hated the sound of the scratching so much." Some 17 years on, and those bribes have paid off - to the extent that Elizabeth Cooney has good teeth, and an even better career in music. Just a few weeks ago, she graduated with first class honours from the Royal College of Music in London. She also came first in her class with marks of 100 per cent.
You've heard of Cora Venus Lunny, who was still a toddler when she was handed her first violin. Like Lunny, Elizabeth Cooney is a graduate of the Suzuki method of tuition, promulgated by Shinichi Suzuki, who died three years ago at the grand old age of 99.
Suzuki method
Born in Nagoya, Japan, in October,1898, Suzuki was the son of a violin-maker and a champion baseball player in his youth. He taught himself to play the instrument, and was encouraged to continue studying in Berlin, where he met Albert Einstein and his future wife among others.
Appointed to the Imperial School of Music on his return to his homeland, the Japanese master believed that children could start to learn music after they had learned to walk. Just as very young children could absorb a language, so they could handle other complex skills at this stage, in his view - a view shared by many other enlightened educators.
Suzuki's pupils usually began at three, practising tunes by ear. Reading music came later, he believed - given that children's language skills start with speech, and reading only comes afterwards. Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star was the first piece in his repertoire, and his principles have now been adapted for other musical instruments, including piano and flute.
Elizabeth Cooney was a little late, then , when she began at five with Patricia Kelleher and Adrian Petcu in the Cork School of Music. One of a family of five, she was second youngest. Her parents never professed to be musicians. "We both play piano amateurishly," her father, Tom, a retired bank manager, says.
Elizabeth won all round her in the Cork School of Music, and at the Dublin Feis Ceoil, the Cork Feis Maitiu and the Sligo Feis Ceoil. She represented Ireland at the European Broadcasting Union's concert for young soloists in Sweden. And last year, she won the string final of the RT╔ Millennium Musician of the Future Competition, leading to a performance by her of the Sibelius violin concerto in the National Concert Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra.
She has performed the Saint-Saens Violin Concerto no. 3 in B minor at the City Hall in Cork, and has played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra in London.
London award
Last year, she won the Leda Casbolt Award for the Outstanding Violinist from the Martin Musical Fund in London, and in December last she performed in Paris with the Imperial College Sinfonietta.
Apart from her solo work, Elizabeth is also very interested in chamber music and orchestra and was leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland for several seasons. She was also a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. She regularly leads both symphony and sinfonietta orchestras at the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied as a foundation scholar with Itzhak Rashkovsky.
The Arts Council is supporting her now, and she intends to continue in London with post-graduate studies. The first three months will be spent in London, and she then travels to Germany where she has been accepted on an Erasmus exchange at the Hochsch ule der Kunste in Berlin. She also has extensive travel plans, with Moscos, Pretoria in South Africa, Italy and the US on her international competition list.
Elizabeth Cooney is both a product of and an enthusiastic advocate of the Suzuki method. "I owe my good memory to it, apart from anything else," she says.
Next Tuesday (July 24th), she is due to perform Prokofiev's violin concerto no.1 at the National Concert Hall Dublin, with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alexander Anissimov, and on August 20th, she will give a joint recital with cellist, Gerald Peregrine, also in the NCH.
Arts festival
Over in Galway, where Elizabeth Cooney has family connections, the Francis Fahy Society of Kinvara is offering an "oasis" during arts festival week.
Next Thursday,July 26th, the Lismorahaun Singers of Co Clare will be making their debut appearance in the neighbouring county. The 50-strong choir will sing in St Nicholas's Church, accompanied by pianist, Roy Holmes, under the baton of the choir's founder, Archie Stewart.
The theme is Mozart to Moore, a special evening of songs from Mozart, Handel, Morricone, Caccini and Grieg. Given that this year marks the death of Giuseppe Verdi, two of his works are also on the programme. There will also be traditional airs by Moore , Yeats and Francis Fahy himself - he being author of Galway Bay and The Queen of Connemara among other tunes.
The concert is being held to support another artistic endeavour - the staging of a new play, entitled The Original Night of Francis Fahy, which has its premiΦre in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, on September 26th.
Mozart to Moore is in St Nicholas's Church, Galway, on Thursday night (8 p.m.);and Elizabeth Cooney plays at lunchtime on Tuesday, 24th, in the National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin.