Dr Alison Loram is an Alexander Technique teacher working extensively with musicians and performers. She has a great deal of experience helping student and professional violinists/viola players with their set up i.e. the interface of the instrument in relation to supporting/playing it. She teaches at Birmingham Conservatoire, RNCM and privately in both Crewe and Birmingham.
Alison qualified as a teaching member of PAAT in 1992 and has been a part-time lecturer in the Alexander Technique at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire since 1993 and a guest-lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music since 2016.
Trained originally as a professional violinist at the Royal College of Music, Alison was drawn to the Alexander Technique by a persistent musculoskeletal problem specific to violin playing. Much of her teaching involves helping student and professional musicians prevent and overcome performance-related difficulties, and improve their performance and practise.
Following her Alexander Technique training, Alison has been a registered practitioner with the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine since 2008 and has given numerous talks and seminars at conferences and meetings, and in music colleges and university departments, to academics, healthcare professionals and performers alike. With a BSc and PhD in Biological Sciences and a number of years working as a post-doctoral researcher, in 2013, Alison gained an MSc in Performing Arts Medicine from University College London. Her research thesis “Chronic profession-limiting problems in musicians; Underlying mechanisms and neuroplastic routes to recovery”, undertaken with PAAT colleagues and movement scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University, can be found here.
Alison returned to violin playing ten years ago and, based in Crewe, performs as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and freelance orchestral player in the Midlands and the North West of England. She teaches the Alexander Technique to individuals and groups, in person and online.
Details of Alison’s Thesis (“Chronic profession-limiting problems in musicians: Underlying mechanisms and neuroplastic routes to recovery”) can be viewed here.
Her 2017 presentation to the UCL Institute of Education (“Explaining the Alexander Technique to clinicians and scientists”) can be viewed here.