Hi, I’m Faith and I am devoted to teaching students to be creative, curious, and passionate.

Faith Salander is from Spring Valley, IL and has been playing the violin since she was 7 years old. She began under the direction of Katherine Roy for 11 years, and is currently studying with Dr. Erik Rohde. She has appeared as a soloist with the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra, after winning the Junior Division of the Concerto Competition in January 2013 & the Senior Division in 2017. She has previously played in the Illinois Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Bloomington Normal Youth Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Wheaton Pops Orchestra, where she held the Assistant Principal 2nd Violin seat at age 13 and continued to play in the 1st violin section in 2014, 2015, and 2017. She has also had solo performances with the Spring Valley Municipal Band, playing the Theme to Schindler’s List in 2015. Faith has been a substitute violinist with different orchestras, such as: The Lake Geneva Symphony Orchestra and the Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra.

Over the years, Faith has enjoyed providing the community with local concerts, accompaniments, performing in duets, string trios, chamber groups as well as performing for many other special events, such as the Maud Powell Festival, recitals, holiday concerts and weddings. In 2014, Faith completed a video project in which she played the music in the first 3 Suzuki books to assist beginning and young violin students by using the videos as a guide and reference for posture, technique and tone and posted them on her YouTube channel “Faithfulviolin”. She has been a violin instructor for 8 years, and continues to have a passion for teaching her students. She loves sharing her music with audiences, and hopes to share that joy with everyone she comes in contact with.

I’ve been teaching students in the Illinois Valley and online since 2015 and it is one of the most rewarding missions in my life. I love working with students of all ages and abilities, and I get so much satisfaction from seeing how they grow and develop their skills and performance.

Here’s what I believe

Everyone can learn.

This is a learned skill, and nobody was born with it. Everyone has the potential to learn to play an instrument and be great at it!

Practice must be a priority.

Whether you are an adult violin student or the parent of a child taking violin lessons, practice must be a priority to grow and learn new skills!

This is a fulfilling, lifelong skill.

Learning an instrument takes a lot of practice, but it is a rewarding skill that you or your child could have forever.