Effaeye Aawenyn
Violin and Fiddle Ages 3 to AdultCurrently accepting new students.
Biographical Info
Known for her creativity, performance artistry and patience, Effaeye Aawenyn has worked as a violin and fiddle instructor for 25 years.
Her individualized teaching style brings out every student’s potential for playing with artistry and musicality, no matter what age or level of study.
For intermediate and advanced students, she offers expertise in bowing techniques, tone, rhythm, phrasing, and stage presence.
She’s a very experienced teacher of young children and beginners of all ages, and is also a longtime dance teacher.
Effaeye studied classical violin with Dr. Joseph Conte (concertmaster of the Rhode Island Philharmonic) in the 1980s, and taught at Maine Fiddle Camp in the early 2000s.
She has studied dance technique and choreography since 1980, including sessions at Boston Ballet and Bearnstow, and holds two certifications from the Bates Dance Festival Professional Training Program.
As an improviser and choreographer, she has collaborated on performances with live musicians including Moira Smiley and Michael Zerang.
Her original curriculum of creative movement and fiddle music has been presented at libraries, schools, and children’s museums since 2003.
Effaeye’s original fiddle compositions, recorded under her former name Susan Hope Hoffman, were featured in her performances at Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant & Music Club and on four albums (@fiddledancemusic).
Reviewer William Cutlip notes she “plays a fine, rhythmically charged fiddle.” Master fiddler Greg Boardman describes her composing and playing as “inviting, warm, energized and straight ahead, with a bit of mischief thrown in.”
Reviews of her work as a fiddler and singer, in a country duet with newgrass (Breakfast Special and Skyline) songwriter Jim Tolles, describe “a powerful performance … graced with superior musicianship” (Will Gottlieb, Coastal Journal).
Her BA in English writing includes honors in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Theater Dance.
She began earning her MPhil in Performance Practice from University of Exeter in 2019, and in 2023 and 2024 was offered a place in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s MEd (Learning and Teaching in the Arts).
In addition to her freelance teaching and performing in New England and Madison, she has worked as an instructor at UW’s Odyssey Junior Music Program, Monroe Street Arts Center, Music con Brio, and the UW Summer Music Clinic.
Effaeye is the curricula designer and instructor for engaging and imaginative “FiddleDanceMusic” workshops, group classes, coaching sessions, and individual lessons in Madison and online.