About
Award winning artist-scholar of the viola Sachin Shukla is based in Boston, MA. His competition awards include first place in the 2021 Northwestern Viola Prize as well as prizes from the Society of American Musicians and the Illinois ASTA. Festival appearances include the Bowdoin International Music Festival and as a recitalist and composer at the Cazenovia Counterpoint Festival, and he has played in masterclasses for Steven Dann and Mimi Zweig, among others. Performances with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and other ensembles have led him to venues such as NEC’s Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston.
Sachin’s prize winning article, “To Christabel: Exploring the Origins of William Walton’s Viola Concerto,” is forthcoming in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Viola Society, after garnering first place in the 2021 David Dalton Research Competition. He is currently working on a project applying the insights of music theory to performance in the Bach cello suites.
Sachin is currently on the viola faculty of the Powers Music School in Belmont, MA and also teaches with the Village Music School and Traveling Music Lessons in Boston. He is pursuing graduate studies at the New England Conservatory with Mai Motobuchi and is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he studied with Helen Callus. He also studied violin and viola pedagogy there with Stacia Spencer, a disciple of renowned pedagogue Mimi Zweig.
In addition to his musical activities, Sachin is also a public policy enthusiast. He has served as research assistant to noted labor economist Diane Schanzenbach and Ajay K. Mehrotra, Executive Director of the American Bar Foundation. At Northwestern, he also served on the executive board of the university’s Political Union for three years, culminating in a term as co-president.
Media
Walton: Viola Concerto
{ i. andante comodo }
Bach: Suite No. 4 in Es for Solo Cello
{ i. prelude }
Clarke: Viola Sonata
{ i. impetuoso }
Hindemith: Sonata for Solo Viola, Op. 25 No. 1
{ iv. rasendes zeitmass. wild. tonschönheit ist nebensache.}
Teaching
Like most musicians, I am the product of great teachers. I do consider myself unusually fortunate to have learned from great teachers of many disciplines - viola, musicianship, mathematics, and political science, to name a few. In my own teaching, I combine the wisdom I have learned from all of these sources, and pass it on to my students.
Learning a musical instrument can be a crucial way to develop physical awareness and critical thinking skills, especially in children. I emphasize this in my technique-focused teaching approach. As my students acquire new skills, I make sure they understand not only what they should be doing, but also why it works. I also often employ the Socratic method in my teaching. I believe concepts become much more powerful when they are discovered by the students themselves, rather than simply handed down from the teacher.
My philosophy as a musician treats music as a product of its human context, its historical and cultural fabric, rather than as an absolute, standalone entity. I also integrate this philosophy into my teaching. A lesson on a Bach cello suite, for example, might entail a conversation on the role of dance and the galant style in 18th century culture and how we can use the rules of 18th century musical grammar to tell a story through the music.
Above and beyond training musicians, I seek to give my students the most important gift my teachers gave me: developing them into sharper thinkers with a fuller appreciation for the enormity of the human experience. If you’d like to learn more or schedule a lesson, contact me.
Web Design
The first thing I do when I hear the name of any musician for the first time is look up their website.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the same way, and for good reason. It’s difficult to quickly get a sense of who a person is and what they do without a unified source that summarizes their activities and accomplishments. And if someone does have a website that’s poorly designed or outdated, it’s hard not to let that color our assessment of that person. The same goes for potential employers, colleagues, and collaborators. A good web presence is an essential for any professional hoping to succeed in today’s world, especially artists, musicians, and performers.
Although my primary vocation is as a musician, I am also a freelance front-end web designer and developer. I re-factor and revise designs and develop websites, using HTML & CSS and content management systems like WordPress.
I specialize in web solutions for performing artists. Being one myself, I have a deep understanding of what kinds of content performing artists need to display and the image we need to carry across. My websites are clean, beautiful, and can showcase you and your work to the outside world. If you’d like to hire me or learn more, contact me.