Atarah Ben-Tovim

Atarah Ben-Tovim, MBE (born 1940) is a British flautist and children's concert presenter.
Born in Wales, Ben-Tovim played her first television concert live at the Royal Albert Hall, at the age of fourteen. She was principal flautist with the National Youth Orchestra, and then from 1963-75 principal flautist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She left the RLPO to found Atarah's Band in 1975, a group which sought to improve children's experiences with classical music. Ben-Tovim was awarded the MBE in 1980 for her work in this field. During its lifetime, the band played to over three million people.
She has guested on several UK television and radio shows, including "Pebble Mill at One" on BBC TV, "The John Dunn Show", "Start the Week" and "Kaleidoscope".
In the late 1980s, BBC Radio Three made the programme "Atarah's Music Box", all about children and music. "Omnibus" devoted a programme to her work, as did "Blue Peter" and "Magpie". Her own television series, "Atarah's Music", aimed at primary school children, aired in 1982.
Together with Douglas Boyd she published "The Right Instrument for Your Child" followed by "You Can Make Music!". Both books concentrated on helping aspiring music students to choose the best instrument for their particular attributes.
Ben-Tovim & Boyd undertook research with thousands of students over a period of ten years in which they followed the successes and failures of these students, and examined the relationship between their physical, emotional and intellectual attributes and the instruments which they chose.
Ben-Tovim's musical stories for little children in "Rub-a-Dub Tub" on Sunday mornings ran for over two years. Her radio series have been broadcast on several local independent radio stations including Birmingham's BRMB, Liverpool's Radio City and Radio Merseyside, Manchester's Radio Piccadilly, and Preston's Red Rose Radio.
She currently resides in France, where she teaches and holds workshops for budding flautists and clarinetists.