Francine Maas
Director, violin

I teach violin and piano at Dunedin, as well as conducting the string orchestra. During the week I am Head of Music at Falcons Pre-Preparatory in Chiswick, and teach violin and piano at Ravenscourt Park Preparatory School. I've also taught at Kensington Wade School, Stamford Endowed Schools, Cambridge Steiner School, and several schools in Australia. I have two concurrent bachelors degrees in Music and Sociology with a First from the University of Melbourne, as well as a Masters in Educational Leadership from the University of Cambridge. I'm currently completing a Masters in Performance at the Royal College of Music as well as the MRPE Programme at the Abbaye aux Dames in Saintes, France. I currently study classical violin with Joshua Fisher and Yuri Zhislin, baroque violin with Rachel Podger and Bojan Cicic, and conducting with Howard Williams.

When I was growing up music was a big part of my life. My mother was a professional musician and I often tagged along to many of her orchestras, eventually playing in some of them. When I was 17 I was accepted into the Junior Academy of the Australian National Academy of Music, wherein I studied with Mark Mogheilevski and Alice Waten. After my undergraduate I headed a string programme at the Cairns Hinterland Steiner School and conducted the Cairns String Orchestra in which I discovered my love for music education. In 2017 I relocated to the Netherlands to take a year of pre-masters study at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague before moving Cambridge where I completed my masters degree as well as running the music programme at the Cambridge Steiner School.

I have been involved with Dunedin since 2019 when I began teaching violin. I have always loved the school and have been so proud to watch the students grow and develop their music. As a Kodaly educator myself, I am also a big fan of the musicianship classes which give children a proper, well-rounded musical education. I am very excited to take over as Director following many years of amazing work by my colleague Mairi-Louise, without whom none of this would be possible.​