Teaching & Studio
Violin and Viola Lessons
Darel Stark offers private violin and viola lessons, for all ages and levels, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Please contact Darel at ds@darelstark.com or by phone and text at (808) 754-0029 for additional information.
Teaching Experience
Darel’s teaching experience encompasses a wide range including violin and viola lessons; coaching cellists and bassists; coaching string duos, trios, quartets, quintets, and Mendelssohn’s octet; coaching piano trios and quintets; teaching master classes and orchestra sectionals; conducting and/or coaching orchestras at many local schools including Punahou, Iolani, Roosevelt, Kamehameha, and Mid Pacific; teaching ear training, music theory, conducting and composition; and teaching baroque performance practice and ornamentation to students, conductors, an ensemble at UH Manoa, and professional colleagues.
His teaching experience started at age thirteen when he began assisting his first violin teacher, Nicole DiCecco, a highly respected teacher both in traditional European and Suzuki methods. Darel spent his early years in the Suzuki method and worked with Shinichi Suzuki on tour as a specially chosen student at age ten. As part of this tour he performed for President Jimmy Carter in Washington D.C.
Later as an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he was a teaching assistant to Lazar Gosman, instructing mainly graduate students. While attending the Peabody Conservatory, he assisted famed violinist Berl Senofsky in teaching both undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, he started teaching his own private students at age seventeen.
For the past twenty years, Darel has coached string quartets and other chamber music at the Iolani School. He also teaches private violin and viola lessons at Iolani and substitute conducts for the many orchestras of varying levels. He also coached chamber music at the Punahou School and teaches violin and orchestra at the Honolulu Waldorf School. During some summers he coaches chamber ensembles for the Hawaii Suzuki Institute which has students from many different states participating. He was an artist-in-residence at the Appel Farm Music Center in New Jersey, which included a lecture recital and coaching the student orchestra. Present and prior violin and viola students were first chair in Hawaii Youth Symphonies, Punahou Orchestras, Iolani, Mid-Pacific, Kamehameha, Moanalua, Kahala, Kiamuki, UH Lab, McKinley, Roosevelt and other orchestras.
From students as young as one-year-old to many adult students, Darel is comfortable and experienced teaching all levels and ages. He is occasionally asked by colleagues for lessons to help improve their technique and get new musical insights. Colleagues have referred their “problem” teenagers to Darel’s studio as he has a special rapport with that age group and understands the emotional support and guidance many teenagers are seeking. During the summer, he teaches theory and ear training classes to help prepare students who are planning to take music courses in college. He often has present and former students over to read and work on the chamber music repertoire. In addition, he has taught composition to a number of students, three of whom produced quite compelling works which were submitted as senior projects at Roosevelt and McKinley High School and received outstanding results.
Like many performing artists, Darel feels an obligation to pass along the wisdom and performing experience from his teachers and coaches. His many solo and chamber music performances give students an opportunity to see and hear what is taught in the studio put to use on the concert stage.