MIND OVER FINGER
Elevate your playing and transform your performance through mindful practice
With Dr. Renée-Paule Gauthier
Practicing for Peak Performance on Demand
Biography
VIOLINIST & EDUCATOR
Renée-Paule Gauthier is a passionate performer, coach, and teacher whose career has taken her across the United States and Canada as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. She performs in the second violin section of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, is a member of some of Chicago’s finest ensembles, including the Joffrey Ballet Orchestra, Elgin Symphony, and Chicago Philharmonic, and is a substitute with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
A devoted educator, Dr. Gauthier is the String Area Coordinator, Co-director of the Chamber Music Program, and Violin Instructor at North Park University. Dr. Gauthier is also Concertmaster and faculty at the Birch Creek Performance Center, and is an occasional coach and clinician for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, the University of Chicago, and several schools and organizations in the Chicago area.
An accomplished concert artist, Dr. Gauthier was mentioned as one of the "best upcoming violinists of the new generation" in the book Violin Virtuosos, from Paganini to the 21st Century (Henry Roth). Dr. Gauthier has won awards in several competitions, including the exclusive three-year loan of the Taft Stradivari violin through the 2009 edition of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank Competition. She made her Kennedy Center solo debut in April 2014.
Dr. Gauthier was Concertmaster of the New World Symphony; Assistant Concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic; a member of the first violin section of the National Arts Centre Orchestra; and is the Founding Artistic Director of the Rendez-vous Musical de Laterrière, a chamber music festival in the province of Québec.
Her dissertation, The Mind First and Foremost: An Exploration of Mindful Practice Techniques and Strategies for Violinists, explores how cutting-edge research on mindfulness and personal growth can help violinists in the practice room.
She blogs about creating a meaningful practice at her website, Mind Over Finger, hosts the Mind Over Finger Podcast, and travels throughout the United States giving masterclasses and clinics on the topics of mindful practice, audition preparation, and anxiety management.
Dr. Gauthier is a graduate of the University of Montreal, the Eastman School of Music, and Northwestern University. She performs on a modern violin by Canadian luthier Marcel Nadeau, and a 19th century Auguste Barbé bow.