Selma Gokcen

Selma began her professional life as a cellist and spent many years teaching and performing as a soloist and in ensembles. Her discovery of the Alexander Technique grew out of a passion for solving problems brought to her by colleagues and young aspiring cellists–habits which seemed to involve poor coordination, faulty movement patterns and tension in the arms and neck.

Many of these habits start in childhood, when musicians receive their intensive training. They are difficult to overcome and can often spell the end of a promising career. There is no heartbreak like failing to reach one’s musical potential even after many years of hard work. The Alexander Technique can provide a way out of this maze of poor habits.

Selma obtained her STAT teaching certificate at the Centre for the Alexander Technique in London in 1998. Her teachers include Eleanor and Peter Ribeaux, Margaret Goldie, Ted McNamara and Marjory Barlow. As a member of the Alexander Technique faculty of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, she works with instrumentalists and singers, and incorporates the Alexander Technique as part of her cello classes at the Junior Guildhall.

Selma also presents workshops in the Alexander Technique to instrumentalists and singers of all ages and stages of development, from beginners to professionals. Musicians who have worked under her guidance have overcome problems of tension, neck and back pain, stage fright and poor breathing.

Musical Work

An accomplished cellist and performer, Selma has given recitals throughout the United States and Europe. She has toured in South America for the U.S. State Department and her appearances have taken her to the People’s Republic of China, where she was invited to give recitals and masterclasses in Shanghai, the Sichuan Province, and Beijing.

She has been a member of the jury for the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition and has given masterclasses in Australia and New Zealand in combination with her Alexander Technique work. Her Bach programme, Pablo Casals: Artist of Conscience, given in London, New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. received critical acclaim.

Selma was awarded her Prix de Virtuosité (First Prize) from the Geneva Conservatoire of Music, where she was a pupil of Guy Fallot and Pierre Fournier. She holds three degrees from the Juilliard School www.juilliard.edu, including a Doctorate of Musical Arts. Among her teachers were Leonard Rose, William Lincer, Felix Galimir, and Robert Mann of the Juilliard Quartet. She has also worked with Mstislav Rostropovich and William Pleeth. Her recording, Songs and Dances, appears under the Gallo VDE label.

As producer, she has issued a video series called William Pleeth: A Life in Music, eight cello master classes given by the renowned teacher of Jacqueline du Pré. She is also the co-founder and Chair of the London Cello Society www.londoncellos.org, an educational charity dedicated to the cello in the United Kingdom. The Society presents an annual series of public concerts, lectures, and seminars. Their most recent production is a DVD of masterclasses with the distinguished cellist Bernard Greenhouse.

Selma has had a lifelong interest in the work of cellist, conductor and supreme musician Pablo Casals.

In 2005 and 2006 she presented a programme with Jonathan Kramer and Bernard Greenhouse called Pablo Casals: Artist of Conscience, a re-imagining of his life through the Solo Suites of Bach. You can read a review of the concert here and also her thoughts on Casals’s recorded legacy here.

Upcoming work for publication:
BACH REVEALED: A Player’s Guide to the Bach Cello Suites
With Selma Gokcen and Kenneth Cooper