Complex sentence: Gitlis got his first violin when he was 5 and started his lessons under Mme Velikovsky, together with his friend Zvi Zeitlin, than he studied privately with Mme Mira Ben-Ami (a pupil of Joseph Szigeti).
Split into simpler sentences: Gitlis got his first violin when he was 5 and started lessons under Mme Velikovsky together with his friend Zvi Zeitlin. He then studied privately with Mira Ben-Ami (a pupil of Joseph Szigeti).