Johanna Staemmler
Violinist, ARD Competition 1st Prize 2012
www.armidaquartett.com
https://www.br.de/ard-musikwettbewerb/preistraeger/2012-preistraeger100.html
Dear Normisa, We are finally back with our son and have an incredible 1st prize and 7 special prizes in the bag. We can't even comprehend it yet. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support in the last months and I am very happy that I was and am allowed to learn so many important things with you... Best regards, Yours Johanna
Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler", Berlin
Recommended coach especially for musicians. Clara-Schumann Coaching Program of the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music Berlin.
Daniela Braun
Violinist, Komische Oper Berlin
https://www.komische-oper-berlin.de/en/loeschen/ensemble/daniela-braun/
„The right thing does itself“ - About my experience with Normisa Pereira da Silva
by Daniela Braun.
For almost three years now I have been grateful to Normisa Pereira da Silva for her lively, intensive and extremely fruitful work. What is set in motion in her lessons is essential to my life as a musician and as a human being. As a former student of the HfM "Hanns Eisler" I can vividly imagine what a great enrichment the Alexander Technique would be in Normisa Pereira da Silva's musician-specific orientation at this university. Why - that is what I would like to try to show on the basis of my experiences.
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Prof. Volker Straebel
Universität der Künste, Berlin
Sound Studies and Sonic Arts
https://www.udk-berlin.de/personen/detailansicht/person/show/volker-straebel/
California Institute of the Arts
Dean, School of Music
https://directory.calarts.edu/music/volker-straebel
Normisa Pereira da Silva has been known to me since the late 1990s, when she was a flutist in the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, then the best contemporary music ensemble in Berlin. Since Ms. Pereira began organizing annual festivals with her own group incidental music in Berlin in 2002, she has become known and appreciated in the city as a soloist and representative of reductive minimalism. I have been able to observe the general recognition her work receives in four juries to which Ms. Pereira has applied for funding for her Berlin concert series.
In the summer of 2005, I had sessions in Alexander Technique with Ms. Pereira almost daily for two months. While I am a musicologist and not a performing musician, I think I can judge from conversations and my own observations that Ms. Pereira's work can be of very high value to instrumentalists.
In recent years, musicological research on the practice of instrumental playing has adopted a more integrating perspective after more theoretical considerations on interpretation, physical phenomenon and individual studies on psychological aspects (problems of practice, fear of failure, routine, etc.). Normisa Pereira da Silva's work fulfills this demand of recent research for the unifying consideration of the musician's physical and psychological processes by training self-observation and inviting a more conscious and free approach to the everyday phenomena of music making. The musician no longer experiences his instrument as a machine whose mastery is to be striven for, but as a tool in the anthropological sense, as an object that helps to overcome his physical limitations. Thus musician and instrument merge in the production of sound. Only now does space emerge for the question of the interpretation of music, which transcends the mere execution of notes.
From this point of view, I can definitely recommend Normisa Pereira da Silva's work.
Volker Straebel - thoughts on music and related arts
www.straebel.de
Veronika Passin
Violinistin,
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
https://www.ndr.de/orchester_chor/elbphilharmonieorchester/orchester/Veronika-Passin,veronikapassin101.html
Dear Normisa,
everything has an end, even a trial year...and I passed it!!!
I am really very relieved and happy.
I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support - your unconventional refreshing ideas, your warmth, your compassion and last but not least your humor!
With warmest regards from Hamburg, Veronika
Sophie von Krosigk
Viola, Staatstheater Nürnberg
https://www.staatstheater-nuernberg.de/kuenstler/sophie-von-hutten
Thank you so much dear Normisa! I also think of you again and again! You have helped me so much! I am doing so well here - a week ago I also passed the trial year and got my contract! That is such a great feeling! I hope you are doing well too! Many greetings to Berlin at the green Zionskirchplatz! Be hugged, from your Sophie
Marie Pinson
Flutist
Dear Normisa, The weekend audition was a very very nice experience! I have been invited to join the orchestra in the spring for a week of rehearsals.... I am very very grateful to you for the progress I have made. I am very happy to talk with you about it next week ! Many love greetings, Marie
Prof. Michael Vogler
Violin and Chamber Music Professor
Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler", Berlin
International Chamber Music Course 2020
https://www.hfm-berlin.de/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungskalender/detail/event/1299-xxix-internationaler-kammermusikkurs/tid/1352/
It was impressive to me with what good intuition she was able to assess the talent level of the students, how helpful she gave hints for the development of the sound movements, how well she connected hearing and seeing. I learned to see and experience many things in a new and different way through her. Reading the lecture she recently gave at the college (I was unfortunately prevented from experiencing it in person), I recognize as an extract of her ideas, and I see with pleasure how much Ms. Pereira da Silva's work specializes in musicians.
Her calm, friendly and always distance allowing nature predestines her for an artistic-pedagogical activity. I consider the Alexander teaching, which complements the main subject teaching, to be very valuable, and I consider Mrs. Pereira da Silva to be exceptionally well suited.
Prof. Diethelm Kühn
Clarinet Professor, www.hfm-berlin.de
Musician & Being - Redefining Virtuosity - Coordination in Motion.
The goal was to expand musical abilities through a sensitive handling of oneself, respectively of letting oneself become one's own experience through coordination and balance. Thereby the effect on the audience should be included.
The weekend course on the above-mentioned topic, which took place on 3 and 4.11.07, was attended with lively interest by many, mainly clarinet students.
The content of the listed topics is unfortunately not part of the curriculum of our university. Many professors at our university recommended that their students at least get some food for thought in this course. In the available time limit it was also not possible to do more.
The lecture and the practical exercises on the main instrument conveyed important insights, which especially positively influence the effectiveness of practicing. Coordination shapes the sound. This is sometimes only partially affected by unfavorable movement patterns. It is not the instrument that produces the sound, but the player himself.
The individual work with each participant required intensive, time-consuming attention.
The feedback from many participants, especially in the individual work, brought her to quick, tangible insights. In addition, it was interesting and revealing for Ms. Pereira de Silva to experience the young students in the handling of their main instrument and to draw starting points for her work from this.
Through the observer situation, in the work with their fellow students, the participants achieved a greater understanding of the processes taking place. In the following Instrumental lessons it became clear that many students received important suggestions from the weekend course and tried to implement them in their work with their instrument.
Frank-Immo Zichner
pianist, UDK University of the Arts, Berlin
https://www.udk-berlin.de/personen/detailansicht/person/show/frank-immo-zichner/
Mrs. Normisa Pereira da Silva is known to me as a special person.
Her ability to put herself into the being of other musicians with great sensitivity is extraordinary.
Her experience as a musician and as a teacher of Alexander Technique offers a wealth of knowledge, which she communicates in an impressive way in her web presence "Musiker&Sein".
The advice she gives to clients is of a thoroughness and plausible naturalness and thus an enrichment for every musician.
Through her knowledge, her sympathetic nature and her friendly approach to others, Ms. Pereira da Silva will always be an enrichment for those around her.
Prof. Tim Vogler
Violine, University of Music and Performing Arts Frankfurt am Main.
https://www.hfmdk-frankfurt.info/index.php?id=528&no_cache=1&L=0&tx_mnmportrait_pi1%5Buid%5D=5205
https://vogler-quartett.de/
Over a period of several years I regularly took Alexander lessons with Normisa Pereira da Silva and through this encounter I gained complex ideas about how to deal with myself. To this day, I benefit from this very directly.
Particularly important topics for me were and are reflections on concentration, being with oneself, feelings, physical self-awareness and much more.
And of course, the work with the hands, which enables the body to make its own experiences. After all, it is so often the "wrong" habits that are perceived as "right" that can make it difficult for us to achieve change.
Achieving and being able to achieve change is an important concern for every musician who wants to get ahead. The way to get there is something most of us have to find for ourselves first.
Normisa works very sensitively with her hands and the experiences made in this way the body does not forget. One changes.
I recommend to every open-minded musician, and even more so to those who are not open-minded, to take lessons with Normisa Pereira da Silva.