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English

Sheila Nelson followed a distinguished career as teacher, writer and performer. She created much educational music, played with the English Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Menuhin Orchestra. It is, however, as a teacher that Sheila Nelson was best known and most highly regarded.

Sheila Nelson studied at the Royal College of Music and received a BMus degree from London University. She also studied at the University of Birmingham and in Denmark and was an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (HonRAM), a distinction limited to 300 musicians.

Sheila was already well-known as a teacher when in 1976 she went to the USA on a Churchill Fellowship, to study the teaching methods of Paul Rolland. On her return to the UK she was invited in the 1980s by the Inner London Education Authority to lead a string project in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets. This unique scheme, involving teams of teachers giving string tuition to whole classes as part of the normal school curriculum was the subject of a six-part documentary series and attracted international attention.

Sheila’s best-selling publications included co-authoring the award-winning Essential String Method – a radical advance in string teaching, which taught musicianship alongside instrumental skills. Also for Boosey & Hawkes she created a range of other music instruction and repertoire books. Sheila travelled worldwide as a teacher and workshop facilitator.

Sheila Nelson's educational music is published by Boosey & Hawkes

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