Elena Spanu

Elena Spanu started playing the violin when she was three. She began her studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music where she studied with Katharine Rapoport. Her formative training was done in the Suzuki Method and the RCM method. She received her Bachelor of Musical Arts from the University of Western Ontario where she studied with Robert Skelton, Virginia Baron and Mel Martin. It is at Western where she discovered Baroque violin and moved on to complete an Artists Diploma in Baroque violin at the University of Toronto. There she studied with Jeanne Lamon and various other members of Tafelmusik. Elena has also studied with such notable teachers as Kelly Parkins, Mark Skazinetsky and Burton Kaplan.

Elena has had the opportunity to travel with her violin. She has gone to France to participate in the Saintes Music Festival with the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique and to Powell River, British Columbia to participate in the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific program.

Elena has received teacher training in the Suzuki method at the Southwestern Strings Suzuki Institute (SOSI). She has completed training in books 1-3 with Edmund Sprunger and Daphne Hughes. Elena continues to expand her teaching skills by attending workshops and institutes. The most recent institutes attended were the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies in New York City and the bi-annual Suzuki Conference in Minneapolis.

Elena greatly enjoys teaching the violin and working as a freelance violinist around the city.