Elvira van Groningen
Violinist - Timani teacher - Musicians' health
About Elvira
Elvira van Groningen is a violinist dedicated to providing professional support for musicians' health and performance, whether they are students, teachers or professional performers. With a deep understanding of the physical and mental challenges faced by musicians, Elvira offers individual Timani sessions, group workshops and online resources to help musicians maintain their wellbeing while optimising their performance. Having recovered from musician's focal dystonia, she now combines her interest and expertise in musicians' health and performance with an active freelance career.
Ⓒ Geoffroy Schied
Areas of work
Ⓒ Helene Knoop
Ⓒ Helene Knoop
Ⓒ Helene Knoop
Performance
Elvira is a freelance violinist, performing regularly with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra and others. Past performances include appearances as a soloist with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and chamber music collaborations with musicians such as Alexander Lonquich and Jens Peter Maintz. After facing challenges with focal dystonia, Elvira continues her career at a slower pace - playing select projects she really enjoys - and combines this with her studies and work in musicians' health.
Timani - move better to play better
Timani is a specialised movement system designed to enhance musicians' understanding of the body’s role in musical performance. It focuses on the anatomy and movement necessary to play with optimal effectiveness, while also addressing common physical, musical and technical challenges faced by musicians. Targeted, practical exercises are used to change any less effective habits into more functional and sustainable ones, directly integrating the newly learnt coordination into instrumental playing.
Recompose - optimising musicians' wellbeing and performance
Recompose is an online community addressing the gap between performance science and practice. Our aim is to share valuable resources in order to educate and empower musicians to make informed choices to optimise wellbeing and musical performance. In doing so, we hope to collectively create a supportive environment in which performers can thrive.
Testimonials
"Elvira has been an incredible teacher, whose passion, knowledge, and care is always evident. Having Timani lessons has helped my body awareness by creating a greater understanding of the relationship between myself and my instrument and has changed how I approach my playing. As someone who has experienced pain while playing, having exercises for my specific needs have helped me become more adaptable, improved my endurance, and given me hope for further improvement that I didn't know could be possible before this."
"Timani lessons with Elvira have been a game-changer for me. The combination of Elvira's warm personality, wide knowledge and extensive experience as a performing musician created the perfect environment for me to explore new ways of thinking about the body and its role in making music. Her kind and non-judgemental approach instantly made me feel safe and curious at the same time.
Through our work with Timani I was able to increase my comfort while playing and could finally get through long performances without experiencing any pain."
"The sessions and conversations I had with Elvira were immensely helpful, not only in starting to understand our anatomy, but also in feeling heard and seen in my struggles to connect the dots.
The combination of Tina [Margareta Nilssen]'s tools and Elvira's insight, dedication and willingness to go into extreme detail on both physical and mental questions I might have (seeing as she is a violinist herself with a similar story to mine) has given me the feeling of a support system that I feel extremely lucky to have."
Rebecca Keller - clarinetist
Magda Makowska - violinist
Alva Holm - violinist
Connect with Elvira
Reach out for bookings, questions or comments.
