CLARA HARDIE

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Clara Hardie is the Founding director & lead violin teacher of Detroit Youth Volume (DYV), an El Sistema-inspired Suzuki violin studio that began at a soup kitchen in 2010. DYV is the original lab school of the "Growing Equitable Music Studios" (GEMS) Five Stars ideas. 

For almost a decade, Clara has been:
  • sustainably fundraising to serve half her students with full scholarships. DYV scholarships remove barriers to a quality music education by providing tuition adjustment, a quality instrument, music accessories, transportation support, performance outfits, snacks, and tickets to local performances.​​
  • nurturing positive cultural identity in her students as Detroiters and youth of color (applicable to over half of DYV students since its beginnings).
  • celebrating local genres simultaneous to classical repertoire by curating collaborative composition and performances between her students and local musicians; DYV has released four albums.
  • ​using pedagogy to intentionally nurture students’ skills as changemakers and as musicians. At the end of each calendar year, success is measured using metrics and goals are set. Conferences involve the entire Suzuki Triangle: parent, student, teacher.

Clara loves people and loves to teach! Detroit Youth Volume is her dream music studio. The GEMS Course of Action and Youth Volume Think Tank are ways to share DYV lessons-learned and unite music teachers with common purpose. Clara became a Suzuki kid at age 5 in Marquette, Michigan, where she was raised by humanitarian medical professionals. In college Clara studied Social Science Theory at the University of Michigan. After moving to Detroit, she was coached by Ammerah Saidi at Allied Media Projects to personalize the Freire-inspired Rida Framework. Clara learned to teach Suzuki Violin Books 1-6 from Mark Mutter. She’s also received training as an early childhood Music Together specialist.

Clara is raising her twins on an urban prairie in downtown Detroit with her vinyl-obsessed husband. They met while booking shows at the Trumbullplex, North America’s oldest anarchist housing collective and arts space. Clara lived there four years prior to founding Detroit Youth Volume, while working at Capuchin Soup Kitchen’s Rosa Parks Youth Program. 

Clara has presented her ideas at the Allied Media Conference, El Sistema USA National Symposium, Suzuki Leadership Retreat, Pedagogy & Theater of the Oppressed Conference, and Michigan American String Teachers Association Studio Teachers Forum.