Tamandra Ford
- Attended Guildhall 1978 – 1981 & shared flat with Joy Farrall in my 2nd year. Joy taught me all I know and kept me sane. Thank you Joy.
- Yona was less than impressed with me from Day 1 as I told him I wanted to be a classroom teacher – not a professional clarinettist. He taught me in my year off before starting at the Guildhall and insisted on new clarinets and complete overhaul of my technique. I used to travel on the train once a month to his flat and have REALLY REALLY SCARY LESSONS. I often practised in the toilet of the train to and from London...... things were different in 1977! I was given to Naomi pretty quickly as I think Yona was bored with me?
- I never ever had the right reed according to Yona......but once, and only once, I played the solo from Beethoven’s 8th symphony in the Saturday masterclass and Yona said I had phrased it musically!!
- You may not want to print or write this anywhere but I found the Saturday sessions the most terrifying experiences imaginable and it makes me relive the horror just writing that. I remember Joy, Jackie, Mike and Sue ( from America?) were always completely amazing and wanted to become invisible each week. Fortunately we usually ran out of time and my reed was wrong!
- I loved my piano lessons with Carola Grindea and thought the whole GGSM course was brilliant – really trained me well for the classroom teaching that I have done for the past 30 years.... sorry Yona, I did mean that that was what I wanted to do.
Student of Yona Ettlinger: 1978 – 1981