SOUL-FULL THRILLING RESONATE INSPIRE NURTURE GROW
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OUR STUDIO STORY
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We both have always been inspired by music... since we were super young. I picked up a violin at the age of 6 and immediately fell in love with everything about it! The sound captured my soul! And so began a lifelong love of playing music... There were many ups and downs along the way.
Ever since my husband and I launched our private strings studio in 2004 in Stuart Florida we have begun a journey of inspiring and nurturing young children and people of all ages to play strings!
Included in the many extraordinary students that began their string journey in our studio is touring fiddler Paddy King who performed with many local groups in South Florida including the String Assasins. He is currently traveling with the group In the Light of Led Zeppelin. We have had several alumni students attain musical scholarships to universities or string competitions with their local orchestras. We have also taught students with special needs- one in particular inspired ALL his brothers and sisters to perform strings which has led this family to participate in many incredible scholastic and travel opportunities to perform with high level orchestras in Europe and Asia!!
Read more about their personal stories below:
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Paddy King
Paddy King- Touring String Artist, OSS Alumni Student
I am so glad that Paddy loves music and playing- he will hear someone performing a piece and has to break it down until he learns it.
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"This musical story starts with a six year old boy picking up a much too big violin to try and play with his father.
Paddy's Dad bought him a half size and started to teach him but soon realized that he needed a real instructor. We were lucky to find Mr. Ballinger and started right away. Mr. B had such patience and a caring style besides being a wonderful violinist. Years later Paddy told us that Mr. Ballinger made learning fun and that he might not have stayed playing if not for his first teacher! |
Today Paddy is still doing just that while performing with numerous local bands and I believe he always will. His journey has brought him to England and across our states playing acoustic Rock to Jazz, Bluegrass to Polka and anything else he hears. So whether called a violin or a fiddle, doing session work in Nashville or playing on a porch, we are very grateful to you both for giving him his start in life !" - Cathie King
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Bobby Savage
Bobby Savage Playing Violin at 6 years old
Bobby Savage 2020 and Alumni OSS Student ;-)
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"Almost 20 years ago, our family started our musical journey. Richard Ballinger, of Ocean Strings, was my oldest son’s very first violin teacher. Our son has special needs and Mr. Ballinger was very patient and encouraging to him. As my other children sat through Mr. Ballinger’s lessons with my son, they too were inspired to play instruments at a very young age. As our family grew, our children’s musical abilities and interests also grew!
"All five of our children now play strings and a few of them are majoring in music at Universities. Three of our children have played with The National Youth Orchestra USA and have performed at Carnegie Hall.
They have been part of many other state and national orchestras as well and have won solo competitions. |
"Having teachers like Mr. Ballinger and the members of Ocean Strings is so vitally important to the musical growth and encouragement of young musicians!
We are so very grateful for them and highly recommend them to anyone who’s child has an interest in music."- Jennifer Savage
We are so very grateful for them and highly recommend them to anyone who’s child has an interest in music."- Jennifer Savage
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OUR STUDIO MISSION |
Our studio mission is to resonate children and families in thrilling soul-FULL musical memories that will inspire them to GROW into the BEST potential of who they truly are and WANT to BECOME!
At Ocean Strings Studio & Kindermusik with OSS we believe in experiencing the BEST of ourselves and others around us by stringing many meaningful MUSICAL moments... at EACH and EVERY CLASS.
By celebrating the unique and creative ideas each student, child and parent shares TOGETHER we form a musical FAMILY.
This is a BOND that will nurture and inspire them to not only grow as musicians but THRIVE as HUMAN BEINGS.
At Ocean Strings Studio & Kindermusik with OSS we believe in experiencing the BEST of ourselves and others around us by stringing many meaningful MUSICAL moments... at EACH and EVERY CLASS.
By celebrating the unique and creative ideas each student, child and parent shares TOGETHER we form a musical FAMILY.
This is a BOND that will nurture and inspire them to not only grow as musicians but THRIVE as HUMAN BEINGS.
We welcome you to join our Ocean Strings Studio family where we will S-T-R-I-N-G!
BE:
SOUL-FULL in your love,
THRILL-ing in your joy,
RESONATE authentically,
INSPIRE to excellence,
NURTURE the "whole" potential child AND:
GROW and flourish as spectacular “waves” on the ocean of humanity!
Musical Wishes,
Richard & Nicole Ballinger💕👣🎶
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MEET OUR EDUCATORS!
RICHARD BALLINGER
Mr. Ballinger started playing the viola when he was 12 years old in public school in Lakeland, FL under the direction of Michael Sedloff and in the Imperial Symphony Community Orchestra. He later attended
Florida Southern College where he graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Music Performance Degree. While at FSC, he was principal violist for the FSC Symphony Orchestra, and violist in the FSC String Quartet. He studied there under the direction of Arthur Pranno and Larry Sledge.
Today Richard is an orchestra director at Oslo Middle & Storm Grove Middle Schools, where he has more than 180 string students. Richard came to Vero Beach in 2004 after teaching privately and directing youth orchestras in Stuart, Florida. He has performed in and as a soloist with several orchestras throughout the state of Florida. He also occasionally functions as MPA judge for various Solo & Ensemble days and Orchestra festivals. He has also served as a clinician for several all county honors orchestra in the state of Florida comprised of advanced middle and high school string students.
Richard also performs violin and viola and is co-founder of the performance ensembles Ocean Strings with his wife Nicole.
Mr. Ballinger started playing the viola when he was 12 years old in public school in Lakeland, FL under the direction of Michael Sedloff and in the Imperial Symphony Community Orchestra. He later attended
Florida Southern College where he graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Music Performance Degree. While at FSC, he was principal violist for the FSC Symphony Orchestra, and violist in the FSC String Quartet. He studied there under the direction of Arthur Pranno and Larry Sledge.
Today Richard is an orchestra director at Oslo Middle & Storm Grove Middle Schools, where he has more than 180 string students. Richard came to Vero Beach in 2004 after teaching privately and directing youth orchestras in Stuart, Florida. He has performed in and as a soloist with several orchestras throughout the state of Florida. He also occasionally functions as MPA judge for various Solo & Ensemble days and Orchestra festivals. He has also served as a clinician for several all county honors orchestra in the state of Florida comprised of advanced middle and high school string students.
Richard also performs violin and viola and is co-founder of the performance ensembles Ocean Strings with his wife Nicole.
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Richard, WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT TEACHING MUSIC THE MOST?
"I LOVE to see how inspired my students become when we perform music together! Its the most Soulful experience I get to have with them... and we do it EVERY DAY!" |
Nicole, WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT TEACHING MUSIC THE MOST?
"Ooohhhhh... So many things! If I had to summarize it though.. I absolutely LOVE when we reach an "AHA!" moment either with our children or with a caretaker in our classes! You can tell when MUSIC has just made an impact not only on someone's mind but their HEART. And we are bonded as humans from that moment forward! Its such a special glowing feeling and a GIFT that I get to experience EVERY DAY!" STUDIO ASSOCIATIONS:
FLORIDA ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION (FOA) MUSIC EDUCATORS NATIONAL CONFERENCE (MENC) FLORIDA MUSIC EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION (FMEA) AMERICAN STRING TEACHERS ASSOCIATION (ASTA) SUZUKI ASSOCIATION OF THE AMERICAS (SAA) |
NICOLE BALLINGER
Nicole has been performing strings for the past 25+ years and started her musical journey learning the violin with Suzuki and traditional methods at six years old. She studied under the direction of Ed Edwards, Cindy Nordstrum and other teachers in Rhode Island. After her move to Florida she returned to music performance alongside her husband Richard. She has performed with several chamber groups and community orchestras among them the Indian River Pops and the Treasure Coast Symphony and now currently the Vero Beach Chamber Orchestra. She has also co-founded and is the event coordinator for the ensembles Ocean Strings- a quartet and duo ensemble that has performed for many special events on the Treasure Coast for the past 15+ years. She enjoys teaching multi-genre strings to beginning-intermediate students at their Vero Beach studio. She's a current member of ASTA ( American String Teacher's Association) and SAA ( Suzuki Association of the America's). In addition she has passionate interests in community volunteering both with the public school orchestra program and in the Haitian/ French community. In 2016, Nicole became licensed in early childhood education to begin integrating the highly successful international music and movement Kindermusik program as part of her new studio classes for infants to age five and their caretakers. In 2020-21, Nicole completed her mentorship practicum with the cutting edge pre twinkle curriculum: Kaleidoscopes, which engages young children in Solfege, piano literacy and Montessori guided education in violin/viola pedagogy. |
OCEAN STRINGS CAFE
GET TO KNOW US:
What do you feel your best strengths are as a musician?
RICHARD:
I feel that my strengths in music are my abilities to focus on intonation, rhythym, and phrasing. I am constantly trying to improve those abilities. Sometimes its a challenge to listen to several students at once in an orchestra and try to figure out which section or student(s) is off and try to correct that. That helps to sharpen me when I am on a one on one lesson. I love seeing my students' progress and love to congratulate them at every opportunity!
NICOLE:
I feel that my strengths are to make learning fun for each student. I always try to tell my students all the things he/she is doing right first. This keeps them motivated and wanting to learn how to do even better. Trying different approaches for each student is important since we all learn in different ways.
What are your challenges/weaknesses?
RICHARD:
My weaknesses are my wife :-) Oh.. you mean in music? In music and in many other things.. many times I put too much on my plate to learn or to do at once. I love experiencing so many things and am a very energetic person! Sometimes this affects those around me.. as I love to challenge myself and others too. So, I have to gage this so as not to overwhelm my students.
Also, I can be a "little" disorganized in paperwork matters... I thank my wife for making sense of our offices and everything around my whirlwind of activity :-)
NICOLE:
I feel that my weakness is to procrastinate. That's why I love to journal my short and long term goals to remind myself what I absolutely need to accomplish each day :-) In regards to music this can affect my practicing. I have the same goals as my students- to have a specific objective every day. Having taken lessons myself growing up, I know how it feels to wonder where all the time went in NOT practicing and then hurriedly try to practice the day before or of the lesson :-) Learning more about how to do effective practice sessions is the key-- its not always about the time we put into practicing but in HOW we do it :-)
What do you both enjoy doing besides playing strings?
RICHARD:
I love everything and anything to do with the ocean! So, that's how we came up with the inspiration for our studio's name. When I'm not busy- herding, um I mean teaching :-) I'm having a blast surfing (I've been part of a student surf club in the past at our school), boating or swimming. We also love to speak other languages- French and Haitian creole. And love to play with Reine, our beagle and studio mascot.
NICOLE:
I love to relax on the beach with my family and friends and like doing a variety of other things- surfing (ok more like body boarding right now lol!)- on a good day :-) ballet / pilates exercise, gourmet cooking, photography, & poetry. Richard and I also spend 20+ additional hours every week volunteering with the Haitian creole community- among them are many children that we have enjoyed mentoring as well.
RESONATE WITH OUR STUDIO!
