About - North Carolina Performance Institute

North Carolina Performance Institute helps students, teachers, and professionals in any discipline learn and perform with greater physical ease and mental composure. We rely mainly on two disciplines in our work:

Pedagogy

Paul Rolland Pedagogy is an excellent conduit for string teachers, particularly in the early years, although the principles are applicable to string players of any level or background.

The Alexander Technique

Anyone can benefit from learning to use oneself in a more optimal manner. Consider the repetitious movements in your daily life, and you will find areas where you can function with greater ease through The Alexander Technique.

Our Founder

Meredith Cooper is a violin performer, private studio teacher, and Alexander Technique teacher. Raised in a musical family in a university town, Meredith grew up regularly attending performances of musicians and ensembles from around the world. She soon began accompanying her mother, a violin professor, to American String Teachers Association (ASTA) workshops.

It was at one of these string sessions that she met Paul Rolland who would later become her mentor for her last two years of high school in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Through her studies with Rolland she was introduced to the Alexander Technique and began receiving weekly lessons with Joan Murray. She returned to NC and subsequently NYC to receive her BA and MA in violin performance studying privately with Marla Mutschler, Giorgio Ciompi, Masao Kawasaki, and attending masterclasses with Itzkah Perlman and Dorothy Delay, among others. Meredith has taught privately since 1996, coached chamber music, and performed with orchestras, theater and ensemble groups in NC, SC, and GA. She holds teaching certificates in Alexander Technique, Paul Rolland Pedagogy, and Suzuki Method (Bk 1-10) and is a member of the ASTA, Suzuki Association of the Americas, and ATI. Her love of teaching and music-making motivates her to underline her lessons with Paul Rolland’s principles of freedom and ease in string playing (as found in his Teaching of Action in String Playing) and F.M. Alexander’s principles of discovering greater freedom in everyday movement.