Monika Witzany has been leading a class for gifted students at the Johann Sebastian Bach Music School in Vienna since 2007, where she developed the Suzuki Violin Project; since 2022, she has also been working with students at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) in the field of breathing and body awareness, as well as a mental coach. In her work with young talents, she is particularly fascinated by the interplay between artistic excellence, technical perfection and holistic personal development.

After attending the Music Gymnasium in Linz, she studied violin at the Music Universities of Vienna and Graz, and at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She attended masterclasses with Lynn Blakeslee, Johannes Meissl and Erich Höbarth. This was followed by years of concert performances, including with the Ensemble Aktuell under Franz Welser-Möst, the Haydn Academy, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Innsbruck Chamber Orchestra Innstrumenti, the Ensemble Sonare Linz, the Altomonte Orchestra, the Johann Strauss Ensemble, and as a founding member of the Austrian Salonists.

Since 2010, there has been an increased focus on teaching. In the meantime, many pupils from the Suzuki Violin Project, where children enjoy group lessons once a week and at least one private lesson a week from the very beginning, have won first prizes at Prima la Musica.

Her understanding of sustainable musical development is complemented by her training as an internationally accredited Suzuki teacher (2002–2004), a Franklin Movement teacher (2010–2012), a Feldenkrais teacher (2017–2021) and a qualified mental coach (2024).

“To teach music is to touch somebody’s life.”

Tove Tetriköy