Suzuki, Shinichi (1898–1998)

Music educationalist who introduced the Suzuki method in the 1950s. He taught very young children to play musical instruments the same way they learn to speak: through listening, imitation, and repetition. He treated music as a language, and maintained that anyone with the right training could become fluent. Pioneered for the violin, the method has also been used for the piano and other instruments.

Suzuki founded a music institute in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1946 and introduced his method to the USA during a 1964 visit. Currently more than 300,000 children in 34 countries are learning music with the Suzuki method, two-thirds of them in the USA.