I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I am grateful that my public elementary school offered a Suzuki strings program when I was in Kindergarten. It introduced me to the cello… which I did not practice adequately until I was bribed by my father with a Nintendo game system to practice everyday, at which point I realized how much I wanted to do it. But I don't feel that I owe Nintendo for this, it was the chamber music I was playing at the time that really convinced me music was the path I was to take.

I am what one might consider "the new guy." I began work with musiConnects in January 2011 and joined the Boston Public Quartet in September 2011. While I am trained to be a performer, musiConnects and BPQ has given me the opportunity to stretch into less familiar directions, amping up involvement in the Mattapan/Roslindale communities, performing in a variety of settings and rehearsing regularly with a dynamic and connected team. 

I find there are three ideas around teaching and learning that I return to day after day. 
     1. Learning occurs where awareness meets reflection. Create a nonjudgmental "space" to allow learning to occur not just in black and white terms, but in the shades of gray.
     2. Relationship between teacher and student is key. This is a new, but favorite quote of mine: "Learning is to be inquiry-based. The materials are not the curriculum--the connection between the student, the teacher, and their areas of interest becomes the curriculum." --Delta Cavner and Elizabeth Gould
     3. Use a whole-language approach. It is exciting, energizing, and positively challenging for a newcomer to communicate musical ideas equally with improvisation, description, dialogue, notation and note-reading. Leverage the energy and depth that provides.

A student of mine was having trouble playing a scale fluidly and quickly. I walked over to the staircase and brought up the concept of "fluency," how it was something we achieved simply by repetition and letting go so our mind could work out the coordination on its own. 

I told her, "we all used to have a really difficult time climbing when we were babies," and I slowly, awkwardly, climbed each stair one at a time like I had never seen a staircase before. She stared at me for a second and then her eyes flashed suddenly. "Oh! Like my little brother! He needs help getting up the stairs because he's so little." 

She gave the scale another try and let her thoughts go for a second. She looked relaxed and played a legato scale up looking proudly at her fingers like they knew where they were going all along. What good is any of our learning unless we can relate it to other areas of our life?

Michael Dahlberg, cellist, is emerging as an engaging performer and educator in Boston and New York. After graduating from the New England Conservatory in May, 2011 where he studied with Yeesun Kim of the Borromeo Quartet, he has explored music as a community-building tool, maintained a regular performance schedule and private studio.

During the 2011/2012 season, Dahlberg became the cellist of the Boston Public Quartet, performing across New England. In addition to the role as a professional string quartet, the group is also a team of teaching artists and co-organizers of the non-profit musiConnects, providing the communities of Mattapan and Roslindale with access to holistic music instruction, forums for creative collaboration and free performances.

An active freelance cellist in Boston, Dahlberg plays regularly with the Boston Philharmonic and Discovery Ensemble. This summer will be his fourth at the Tanglewood Music Center where he was awarded the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Award (2009) and featured in contemporary chamber works as a New Fromm Player (2011/12).

Recent projects emphasize the layered nature of Dahlberg’s early career. These range from collaborations with composers such as Oliver Knussen, Charles Wuorinen and John Zorn to shows with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Laura Grill Band. He has held leading positions as Mentor in the inaugural class of Arts Leaders at From the Top’s “Center for the Development of Arts Leaders,” faculty at the Community Music Center of Boston and guest teaching artist for the 7th annual Panama Jazz Festival. With the aid of an entrepreneurial grant from New England Conservatory in the spring of 2011, Dahlberg founded the “LilyPad Quartet” project, which aimed to refocus classical music performance on  the relationship between artist and audience as people. 

Visit his website at www.michaeldahlberg.com