PLATINUM PROFILE

Mu s ic

A physician makes beautiful music — and teaches others how to do it, too.
71-11.11111111111 ■ 1111 ■ 1••• ■ ••11'

Concerto in A Minor

1st Movement
to-1,*[ 11, i

!Mop.

A. Vivaldi

-

• I

_

e • „

•

!

___

1-

,,,. • e

• • „•• .

• • •

•

•_______
_ • , ,

• • • •

° • ° •:• • •

10e'

3 o

• • ,",..
•

Lic,••$.• •
- •

ma ,

._!

-

eo

r1

,

a

•

•

P •

---

- v

- -7--

-----

3

7

.

o

1-1:1

to....

0

p ,

Cuttirrf

en. MI

•

ler P —

an A-Moll. Err

P

Meth. .Ire

roovurn

BY ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Above: Student Aaron Leven, 9, of West Bloomfield practices a

recital piece. Below: Sharon Rothstein explains positioning to

Ethan Biederman, 4, of Franklin.

20 • s[1:TEMBF:k

2

III, •

JNPLATINUM

W

I

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARMANDO RIOS

hile Sharon Rothstein's parents were cer-
tain she would make a terrific physician,
Sharon herself dreamed of becoming a
violin teacher. Today, she is both.
Her home is more than just her home; it's also a
studio. Step through the door, and visitors meet her
students via a barrage of photos covering the wall:
small children gently holding violins in their tiny
fingers (some 2-year-olds like to tag along to lessons
with older siblings); a young girl from Japan, a beauty
and perhaps a prodigy; a blond girl who speaks little
but plays with passion; a boy, only 8, already skilled
enough to perform with a high-school orchestra.
There are charts, too, covered with shiny stars and
animal stickers, given as rewards when students mas-
ter a musical challenge.
In all, Rothstein teaches 29 students — mostly
children, but a grandmother, as well.
Rothstein, of Farmington Hills, grew up in
Akron, Ohio, and began playing violin when she
was 7. Her mother, who played violin and piano as a
child, and her father, an anesthesiologist, "encouraged
me but never pushed me" to play an instrument, she
says. There was no need: Rothstein was so in love
with her violin that she got up early, before school, to

practice.
She still pursued doctoring, though, receiving
a medical degree and completing her residency in
occupational medicine, then earning a master's degree
in public health. With that, she also earned contracts
with various businesses to provide occupational med-
icine services to their employees.
But she never left the violin. As one medical
contract position ended, she signed up for a Suzuki
teachers-training course. Weeks later, however, she
was offered another full-time medical position.
Declining it, she decided she would somehow make
both medicine and teaching work, and she continued
her courses.
"Over time, it has evolved into the perfect bal-
ance," she says. "Now, it is that."
Her first student came to her through a chance
meeting at the airport. An 8-year-old girl who lived
with her mother was on her way to see her father
in Chicago. She approached Rothstein, toting her
own violin, and told her, "I've always wanted to play
violin, but we can't find a teacher." Rothstein volun-
teered to help with the search, then, at the recom-
mendation of her own violin instructor, became the
girl's teacher herself