The Collaborative Piano Blog Is Now IE6 Compliant

Update: Happy April Fool's Day, everyone! This prank does have some basis in reality, since CPB does actually render on IE6, albeit after a somewhat lugubrious loading time. Stay tuned for another April Fool's prank in 2011, for which I've already begun the planning process.




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1 April 2010

TORONTO, Canada. (April 1, 2010) - Following in the footsteps of a major redesign in mid-March, the Collaborative Piano Blog announced today that for the first time, it is now fully IE6 compliant.

With its beginnings as a blog about the service of accompanying singers and tuba players, the Collaborative Piano Blog has previously been directed towards a small audience segment, focusing on anarchistic users of Firefox, Opera (European Socialists), Google Chrome (computer scientists), Safari (hippies), and advanced experimental releases of Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (graduate students).

However, up until this time, no design of the Collaborative Piano Blog has been specifically geared for the mainstream of corporate and recreational internet users, most of whom use Internet Explorer 6, one of the most reliable stable, and long-lasting browsers ever created.

"As we move into the 21st century, technology is increasingly becoming a part of our lives as musicians", said Collaborative Piano Blog founder Chris Foley from downtown Toronto. "We're seeing accompanists and music teachers embracing technology to an amazing extent. I know of several teachers who organize their studios via hand-held cellular phones or electronic mail, have abandoned windup metronomes in favor of electric ones, and record their schedule onto a computerized device such as the Apple Newton."

"No longer will the Collaborative Piano Blog be solely geared towards people who accompany for fun, double-reed enthusiasts, or twelve-tone composers. Moving forward, we're looking to leverage the power of Internet Explorer 6 and its support of internet security and modern web standards to create vast new opportunities for the world of the piano in ensemble, and the piano in real life."

The Collaborative Piano Blog is an independent music blog written by Toronto-based pianist and teacher Chris Foley. Click here to discover more about how to purchase Internet Explorer 6.

Call For Pianists and Singers: Jose Iturbi International Music Competition

I just received a press release from the Jose Iturbi International Music Competition, which is posted below in full:

Los Angeles – March 30, 2010 - BREAKING NEWS….The José Iturbi International Music Competition has just announced that the competition will be televised for the first time ever!

The competition, which is known as the “American Idol” or “Star Search” of the classical music world, is looking for outstanding classical pianists and vocalists, ages 17 – 35. This is your chance to show the world your talent! Are you the next Lang Lang or Chopin? Is your voice as great as Luciano Pavorotti or Marilyn Horn? The deadline for applicants is May 1, 2010.

This is open to classical pianists and singers of any nationality who are 17 to 35 years old on June 1, 2010. The level of talent is outstanding and the judges in competition look for contestants to have a full range vocally, including the ability to perform pieces from opera to Broadway and Cole Porter; and for pianists to perform works from J.S. Bach to Chopin, to Gershwin and beyond.

This is the first time the four year old competition will be televised. The first round of José Iturbi Foundation’s competition will take place June 14–19 in Los Angeles at Schoenberg Hall and will be taped for broadcast. The final rounds will be broadcast live in front of a studio audience in the fall and will attract international press exposure for the contestants.

This competition awards the largest cash prizes (totaling $250,000) of any classical piano and voice competition worldwide and is one of the most prestigious, as it is only international music competition that awards cash prizes annually, while most competitions take place bi-annually or every few years. The grand prize for piano is $50,000 and the grand prize for voice is $50,000. Competitors will receive airfare and hotel allowance.

The 2010 judges for piano are: David Pollack (Chairman), Jorge Mester, Lalo Schifrin, Mark Swed, and Ilana Vered. The 2010 judges for voice are: Matthew Epstein (Chairman), David Daniels, Marilyn Horne, Peter Kazaras, Carol Vaness. The collaborator/accompanist for the final round of competition is Martin Katz.

Deadline to enter is May 1, 2010. Enter now! To submit and application and for more information about the competition, go to http://www.joseiturbifoundation.org.

This looks like a fascinating opportunity, especially for the finalists who will get to work with Martin Katz. I wonder which TV network will be picking up the competition...

(Thanks, Jennifer!)

Toronto Children's Chorus Seeks Pianist for 2010-11 Season

The Toronto Children's Chorus is looking for an experienced pianist to play for both the Main and Chamber Choirs for the 2010-11 season. Some details:

Duties include accompanying the Main Choir and Chamber Choir division in weekly rehearsals, performances, workshops and camps, recordings and international tours; developing musical skills in the choristers through sight-singing and ear-training. Some details for the upcoming season include:

• Week-long overnight camp August 27-September 3, 2010
• Rehearsals Tuesdays and Fridays from September to June under the direction of Elise Bradley
  
• Concert season, guest appearances, workshops
  
• Recording project 2010-2011
  
• International Tour in Summer 2011
  

If you're interested in applying, resumes and cover letters are due on April 9. For more information, take a look at the full job posting on the TCC site.

(Thanks, Lisa!)

Geza Hosszu Legocky and Martha Argerich Play the 3rd Movement of Robert Schumann's Violin and Piano Sonata in A minor

Here are Martha Argerich and Geza Hosszu Legocky playing the fiery third movement of Schumann's Violin and Piano Sonata in A minor Op. 105, from a 2004 live performance in Lugano:



More Schumann A minor violin/piano action:

Grigory Kalinovsky and Tatiana Goncharova play the 1st movement
Agnieszka Reiner and Slawomir Cierpik play the 2nd movement

The Perfect Match on Bravo!FACT

Following the recent production of Tapestry New Opera Works' Opera To Go, many readers have asked if Krista Dalby and Anthony Young's same-socks opera movie The Perfect Match is available online. As a matter of fact it is, and you can watch the complete short film at the Bravo!FACT website:

The Perfect Match (credits)

Four-Piano Version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons

From Verbier last summer, Yuja Wang, Emmanuel Ax, Nelson Goerner, and Julien Quentin play the first movement of Spring from Vivaldi's Four Seasons:



(Via Oboeinsight)

More 4-piano action on the Collaborative Piano Blog: Julius Eastman's Gay Guerrilla at EMPAC

Merton Improvises on Chatroulette

The art of piano improvisation is alive and well thanks to pianists like Merton, who may well have invented a new genre of online pianistic interaction. The only reason I would ever go on Chatroulette would be for the remote chance of getting to play a duet with this guy. Here are the first two volumes of Merton on YouTube:

ACMP - The Chamber Music Network

Finding other musicians to play chamber music with can often be a challenge. Enter ACMP: The Chamber Music Network, a world-wide chamber music community that puts chamber musicians of all levels in contact with one another as well as offering grants for community initiatives, workshops, and home coachings. About the ACMP Directory:

The Directory is at the heart of ACMP–The Chamber Music Network. Use it to establish new friendships in your area and to meet fellow musicians when you travel. You can locate people by country, geographic region, instrument, and self-grading level. Members expect to be telephoned or e-mailed to arrange a morning, afternoon or evening of music-making. Initiating and responding to contacts is what the ACMP network is all about.

Your involvement is a matter of personal choice. You may be content to invite others for a one-time session, or you might wait for someone to call you. Think about using the Directory to organize a chamber music party or to find an extra player to expand your regular chamber music group.

Membership consists of two levels: free directory listing, which gets you the directory, guide, and newsletter, or the $25 annual full membership, which gives you options for discounts on products and services, as well as access to the ACMP's extensive grant program. You can also make a contribution online.

Peter Ablinger's Speaking Piano

A recording of a boy reading an environmental manifesto gets played back on a piano, via the digital manipulations of Peter Ablinger:



Sounds a little....pixelated. Anyone have a usable fingering?

Read more about the speaking piano at Digicult, Hack a Day, and Matrixsynth.

(Thanks, Bettina!)

Of course, I much prefer the old-school way of making a piano speak...

The MTNA in Albuquerque...Live-Blogged

For those unable to go to the 2010 MTNA National Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, all is not lost - Natalie Wickham of Music Matters Blog live-blogged the entire event and has put together a handy compilation of the sessions she attended. The Collaborative Piano Blog even got a mention in Carolyn Bridger's Let's Play Chamber Music! A Guide for Young Pianists. And of course, looking forward to the coming year, this blog has been announced as a partner organization for MTNA's Year of Collaborative Music...

Two Performances of Opera To Go Remain

Thanks to so many people for coming out to the opening of Opera To Go last night! If you're interested in attending the two remaining shows Thursday and Friday night, tickets are $40 (or $20 for students and arts workers). Be sure to call 416-537-6066 to reserve your tickets ahead of time, especially if you're intent on going to the Friday performance, which will almost certainly sell out.

Update: The Tapestry Facebook Page is reporting that Friday's performance is sold out, so tonight is your best bet if you want to see the show...

Agnieszka Reiner and Sławomir Cierpik Play the 2nd Movement of Robert Schumann's Violin and Piano Sonata in A minor

Part of the charm of the second movement of Robert Schumann's Sonata for Piano and Violin Op. 105 lies in the fact that it feels more like a character piece than the slow movement of a sonata. This video features some lovely playing from violinist Agnieszka Reiner and pianist Sławomir Cierpik in a 2003 recital at the Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie:

Teaching Students To Be Critical: A Slideshow by Ken Pendergrass

Ken Pendergrass' slideshow on Teaching students to be critical in a healthy way (originally presented to Seattle Music Partners tutors) encapsulates different types of learning modalities for students and ways to optimize them:

Julius Eastman's Gay Guerrilla Performed at EMPAC

Julius Eastman's Gay Guerrilla is an epic half-hour work for 4 pianos that I discovered this evening via Alex Ross. The video below features Michael Century, Max Canaday, Catherine Chou, and Andre Watson last November at EMPAC in Troy, New York. Check out the sweet piano situation - three Boesendorfers and a Fazioli a Boesendorfer, Steinway, Fazioli, and Yamaha (my mistake). If you're planning on listening to the work in its entirety (which I really recommend), take a look at these biographies of Eastman. You can also follow along with the score if you're keen on deciphering Eastman's unique notational system.

Win Two Free Tickets To Tapestry's March 25 Performance of Opera To Go

Photo by Michael Cooper

Update: this contest is now closed. Congratulations to Jeff Newberry for winning a pair of free tickets to Opera To Go on March 25!

One of the most exciting projects that I'm involved in this season is the remount of five six operas from Tapestry New Opera Works' Opera To Go program over the last 8 years. So once again I am proud to present another pair of free tickets to Opera To Go for the evening of Thursday, March 25 at the Distillery District's Fermenting Cellar. Here are the operas that will be presented:

The Laurels - libretto by Michael Lewis MacLennan, music by Jeffrey Ryan.

Ice Time - libretto by Mark Brownell, music by Chan Ka Nin.

The Perfect Match - a film by Tom Diamond with libretto by Krista Dalby and music by Anthony Young.

Ashlike on the Cradle of the Wind - libretto by Jill Batson, music by Andrew Staniland.

Rosa - libretto by Camyar Chai, music by James Rolfe

The Colony - libretto by Lisa Codrington, music by Kevin Morse

Opera To Go will feature soprano Xin Wang, mezzo soprano Krisztina Szabo, tenor Keith Klassen, and baritone Peter McGillivray. Directed by Tom Diamond, with Musical Director Wayne Strongman conducting a chamber orchestra (I'm playing piano). Here's how to get your free tickets:

Contest Rules and Regulations

1. I will be giving away one pair of tickets to the March 25 performance of Opera To Go at the Fermenting Cellar in Toronto's Distillery District.
2. To win the pair of tickets, leave a comment on this post listing three previous productions of Tapestry New Opera Works. Right after posting your comment, email me at collaborative piano [at] gmail dot com confirming your entry and identifying yourself in case you left an anonymous comment.
3. The first correct entry will be the winner. Immediately after identifying and announcing the winner, I will email both them and Tapestry so that the winner can get information on how to pick up their two free tickets.

Good luck!

The Piano, Prepared

Surprisingly, piano technicians are generally okay with pianists preparing instruments in the manner prescribed by John Cage in his Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. If you've never done it before, it takes about two hours to get everything set up inside the piano.Once you play Cage's Sonatas with the preparations for the first time, the sound that comes out is completely different from what you had practiced without the preparations.

Boris Berman plays Sonata II:



Bobby Mitchell plays Sonata V:

MUSAIC at the UBC Museum of Anthropology on March 28

Hey all you Vancouverites: on Sunday, March 28, beat those post-Olympic blues with MUSAIC, an interactive concert at UBC's Museum of Anthropology featuring Kathryn Cernauskas on flute, AK Coope on clarinet, pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, and soprano Heather Pawsey. From Heather's press release:

This interactive performance features an all-Canadian program including the music of Canadian composers Graham Coles, Jean Coulthard, Clifford Crawley, Srul Irving Glick, Robert LeMay, Leila Lustig, Francois Morel, John Oliver, Harry Somers, Leslie Uyeda, Elliot Weisgarber, and others.

Come and join a journey-both musical and literal - through the stunning spaces of the late Arthur Ericksen's architectural masterpiece, the newly renovated Museum of Anthropology.

Acclaimed musicians Kathryn Cernauskas, flute; AK Coope, clarinet; Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, piano; Heather Pawsey, soprano with surprise guests, invite you to explore First Peoples and other world cultures through music, art, space and artifacts in this kaleidoscopic quest. Join in and follow the performers as they entice you through the exquisite expanses of the Museum - from the grand and soaring galleries to the small and intimate laboratories and lounges - providing incredible opportunities for acoustic and visual exploration.

The impetus for, and focus of, this concert is passion for history and its effects and continuum in our present life; for cross-cultural art and its expression in inter- or multi-disciplinary forms; and from a fascination and respect for different cultures and cultural traditions. The MOA's mission "... to investigate, preserve, and present objects and expressions of human creativity in order to promote understanding of, and respect for, world cultures" integrates ideally with the rich and multi-layered cultural and stylistic diversity of Canadian music.

MUSAIC starts at 7pm on Sunday March 28 at the UBC Museum of Anthropology on 6393 Northwest Marine Drive. Tickets are free!

A New TAFTO Location

A few weeks ago, Drew McManus relaunched his multi-year archive of articles from the Take A Friend To The Orchestra series as a mini-site within Adaptistration. The TAFTO articles are a great resource for anyone looking at ways that musicians and arts leaders can engage with audiences, and vice versa. My 2008 contribution looked at the variety of experiences I had participated in with Tapestry New Opera Works, and if you haven't read it before, you can find it here.

Grigory Kalinovsky and Tatiana Goncharova Play the First Movement of Robert Schumann's Violin and Piano Sonata in A Minor

Chopin isn't the only composer with a bicentennial this year - June 8th, 2010 will be the 200th centenary of the birth of Robert Schumann. Here are violinist Grigory Kalinovsky and pianist Tatiana Goncharova playing the first movement of Schumann's Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor Op. 105:

Respect the Pianist

More wisdom from the pen of Susan Eichhorn Young:

Your pianist's time is just as important and valued as yours. Do not devalue it. Your reputation will proceed you, and suddenly you may find yourself in a position of not being able to find a competent pianist who has time for you. Pianists talk to each other - and our world is small. Don't sabotage yourself, nor your studio, nor your reputation by not being aware of your behavior!!!

Amen! See Susan's full article: How NOT to treat your pianist!

Opera To Go: In the Rehearsal Studio

Here are some informal shots I took this morning on my Blackberry's camera. I would have liked to have taken some pictures of the actual rehearsal process, but I was otherwise occupied at the piano, playing all the orchestra parts.

The toy piano used for Chan Ka Nin's Ice Time

The first page Jeffrey Ryan's The Laurels

Keith Klassen with latte

Tom Diamond took this picture of me

Xin Wang and Krisztina Szabó

Wayne Strongman showing them who's boss

Peter McGillivray and duck

Susan Tomes' Out of Silence Will Be Released Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the launch date of Susan Tomes' new book Out of Silence, which chronicles a year in the life of one of Britain's top pianists and chamber musicians. Susan is known for her work with the Florestan Trio and Domus, as well as two previous books, to name only a few of her many projects. She also writes a wonderful blog which should be on the recommended reading list of any collaborative pianist. From the Amazon blurb:

Out of Silence is a diary of a year in Susan Tomes's life as a performer. Taking as its inspiration Schumann's remark that 'I am affected by everything that goes on in the world, and I think it all over in my own way', it aims to show how a working musician mulls over and draws energy from the events of everyday life. We follow this internationally renowned pianist as she prepares for concerts and performs, both as a soloist and as part of a chamber ensemble; we experience the highs and lows of practising and the challenges of live performance, we see her planning masterclasses and interacting with both musicians and audiences. She casts her mind back to her childhood - practicing before school on cold Edinburgh mornings, playing 'Danny Boy' for a relative - and reflects on paintings, dance, books, sport and gardening. 

Look for a review of Out of Silence in the coming weeks. Until then, be sure to raise a glass to Susan at 6pm GMT tomorrow...

The Nigredo Hotel Orchestra in 2005

In a break from rehearsing for the upcoming Opera To Go at Tapestry New Opera Works, Assistant Stage Manager Marisa Vest showed me some pictures she had taken for the 2005 production of Nigredo Hotel (libretto by Ann-Marie MacDonald, music by Nic Gotham), including the one at left of the band. From left to right: Andy Morris, percussion, Joe Phillips, bass, Robert Stevenson, clarinet, and me on piano. I had totally forgotten about my early 2005 goatee.

Incidentally, Nigredo Hotel is the most-performed Canadian opera ever written, with over 100 performances in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia since it premiered in 1992.

Yves Beaupré's Clavecin à Pédalier

What if you added a pedal manual to a harpsichord so you can play organ music? Quebec harpsichord-maker Yves Beaupré has made precisely such an instrument (more on French Wikipedia). Luc Beauséjour plays and talks about the clavecin à pédalier in a recent video:



(Merci, Sophie!)

A New Look

After several hours of tweaking, I'm proud to announce the redesign of the Collaborative Piano Blog, taking advantage of the possibilities of Blogger's new template designer feature. Among the changes are a new color scheme, some cleaning up of widgets (most notably in the footer section), and the addition of stand-alone pages, which you can see as tabs just below the header. There might be some more changes coming in the next few days, including repositioning of widgets and sidebars, but I'm pretty happy with the updated look. If you notice any things that aren't yet working, feel free to leave me a comment below.

How To Use Google Street View for Pre-Audition Recon

I'm currently working with a lot of musicians who are doing auditions in the next few months, often in cities where they've never been before. Part of the trepidation of auditioning for a school of music (or interviewing at one for those in the job market) lies in the unknown factors of effectively navigating to the school's front door, early if possible and with a minimum of surprises.

Fortunately, there are plenty of free tools that can help you not only find where you're going and how to get there, but put you virtually at the location of where you're going. One of those tools is the Street View layer of Google Maps. What follows is a tutorial on how to find your way around in Street View.

1. Go to Google Maps and type the address of your destination in the search box. For the purposes of this article, type in "26 Gibbs Street Rochester NY", which will yield the location of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. After clicking on the Search Maps button, you should see either a map or satellite image, with your destination highlighted. At any point in your search, you can click Get Directions to get both a map and road-by-road directions from your start point to the final destination.

2. On the left-hand side of the page, click on the "more" link on the right. Below you can see the link circled from the search results:

3. After clicking on the "more" link, click on "Street View", which will call up the Street View layer on Google Maps. You can now rotate the camera 360 degrees in each location, as well as double-click the circles on the road to navigate to different locations up and down the street. The square on the upper right-hand side of the picture enables a fullscreen view, which greatly enhances the awesomeness of Street View.

The picture at the top of this article shows the front entrance of the Eastman School of Music. If you're auditioning at Eastman and you've never been there, you will learn from Street View that Gibbs Street is one-way northbound, which means that an East Avenue approach is easier than one from Main Street if you're looking to drive to the front door. You can also tell from the picture that there is at least some metered parking on the street, although from looking at the map view it might be easier to find parking just north of Main Street or in the parkade on Scio.

Wandering around your destination on Street View (double-clicking on the circles, remember), you can also tell that the Eastman campus is quite compact, and with coffee just down the street at Java's Cafe. If you've done the Street View walk before you actually go to your location, you'll remember the locale of where you're going in three dimensions instead of two, in addition to feeling a weird sense of déjà vu when you actually get there.

If you want to go a step farther, you can even visualize yourself confident and in control on audition day when Street View surfing, so that when you get there for real, you can recall the feeling and focus more effectively. I do this all the time when performing and adjudicating in new places.

This recon method is effective not only for auditions, but for performances, exams, job interviews, and recording sessions as well. Don't forget to either print out the driving directions or save them for later viewing, so that when you're on the road, you'll have the directions at your fingertips.

How do you use Google Maps, Street View, or other map programs (such as MapQuest or Bing Maps) in your musical life?

Turn Your Clocks Ahead This Weekend

A quick reminder for all you gigging collaborative pianists right in the middle of recital season...

This is the weekend when most of us in North America make the switch from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time. Therefore, before going to bed on Saturday night, turn your clocks one hour ahead, otherwise when you show up for your first Sunday morning gig one hour late, you might never work again.

That is, unless you live in places such as Saskatchewan, Creston, B.C., or certain locations in northern Ontario (so I'm told), where DST is not observed, in which case you can simply ignore this slightly off-topic but nevertheless important posting.

Chicago Opera Vanguard Presents Staged Winterreise

It appears that the days of staged and/or remixed recital presentations might signal the future direction of the song cycle. I've already mentioned Hoi Pollio's irreverent Schubertian romp in the snow - also this month, Chicago Opera Vanguard is offering a staged version of Schubert's Winterreise starring baritone Brad Jungwirth and pianist/musical director Byron Silverstein.

The first two performances have already sold out, and the following shows are coming up in the next few weeks at the Fasseas White Box Theater at the Menomonee Club Drucker Center:

8pm Friday March 12
8pm Saturday March 13
4pm Sunday March 14
8pm Monday March 15 ($15 Industry Night for arts workers)
8pm Friday March 19
8pm Saturday March 20
4pm Sunday March 21

Tickets are $25/10. This is definitely a production to check out if you're in the Chicago area.


View Larger Map

An Update from Hoi Pollio's Winterreise at the Ontological in NYC

Several weeks ago, I mentioned Hoi Pollio's irreverent production of Winterreise at the Ontological Theater in NYC. Earlier this week, Alec Duffy sent along the following update (edited):

Hi Chris,

Thanks again for posting about "Three Pianos" a while back. We opened the show and have been getting rave reviews! Here's a five-star review from Time Out New York, and a rave from Culturebot, the biggest theater blogger in NYC.

We're expecting the Village Voice's review on Wednesday, and the New York Times reviewer is coming to the Thursday show.

Thanks again for your help!

Alec

Best of luck to Hoi Polloi for a successful remainder of their run. If you're in NYC and haven't checked out Three Pianos: Schubert's Winterreise Exploded, featuring Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy, you only have until March 20...

Those Darned Page-Turners

In case you haven't yet figured out the difference between Crowders, Helicopters, Human Obstacles, Music Civilians, Space Cadets, Silent Critics, Destroyers, and Participators, head on over to Good Company for Billie Whittaker's A Brief Guide to Page Turners.

I am proud to say that my turning skills put me in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Page-Turner category, although I am currently in retirement and am not available to turn pages for anyone at present. I would also like to posit the existence of yet another category to add to Billie's list:

Hand Position Observer. While not displaying the cavillous traits of the Silent Critic, the Hand Position Observer's relaxed demeanor masks formidable powers of observation, and has been known to put off many a pianist in performance with their single-minded focus on the hand, wrist, and forearm position of the pianist whose pages they are supposed to be turning. HPO's are often dedicated students of piano pedagogy and have been known to carry protractors backstage.

Estates Theater, Prague

Click on the fullscreen button to get a better 360-degree view from the stage of Prague's Estates Theater, which sports a long and illustrious history.  This was the theater where Mozart's Don Giovanni and La Clemenza di Tito had their premieres...

The Pantheon Will Be Closing in 4 Minutes

Read in the Guardian about how a misunderstanding about the correct closing time of the Pantheon became a shouting match between audience members and staff, and a serious political incident that required an apology from the Italian culture minister to the mayor of Rome. The video of the incident on YouTube:

Chopin Butterfly Etude Old School Battle Royal

pianopera has assembled a comparison (in chronological order) of seven historic performances of the Chopin Butterfly Etude Op. 25 #9, as played by Backhaus, Paderewski, Godowsky, Friedman, Cortot, Arrau, and a young Ashkenazy. Listen to how tempos, rubato, piano quality, and stylistic approaches change over 50 years.

Learning to Change - Changing to Learn

I find the following video put out by the Consortium for School Networking absolutely fascinating. How do we fit into this picture as musicians and music teachers? How many of us both in the institutional and private educational realm are being left behind?



(Via @brandags)

More About Memorizing

This is the time of year when the value and craft of memorizing music comes into play. Joy Morin has recently written an excellent guide for those of you looking for more efficient ways to remember your music. I particularly like #3:

3. Always memorize the dynamics, articulations, and and other markings on the page along with the notes. Don't wait until you have the notes mastered! It's difficult to go back and fix things later. It's better - although perhaps more tedious initially - to learn it right the first time.

Uh huh. Uh huh.  My students have all heard that before. #10 (relating to multiple start points) is also very important for preparation and may save your hide in the heat of battle.

12 Tips for Memorizing Piano Music

Previously on the Collaborative Piano Blog:

8 Ways to Improve Your Marks in RCM/NMCP Piano Examinations
5 Reasons to Memorize Music
Making Endings Work
Run the Program
Goal Setting Part 3: Long Term Goals 

Playing Beethoven on Original Instruments

For those of you performing works of Beethoven, it's well worth test-driving a fortepiano, whether an original instrument or copy. Jan Swafford's recent article in Slate talks about how the experience of playing Beethoven can be radically different depending on whether you play it on a modern vs. authentic instrument (be sure to listen to the audio clips in the Slate article). On the opening of the Moonlight Sonata:

The sound is startlingly different from a modern piano and takes a while to get used to. These instruments were mostly played in small to medium-size rooms. The sound is intimate; you hear wood and felt and leather. The voicing is varied through the registers rather than the homogenous sound of modern pianos. On the Katholnig, the effect of holding the pedal down in the "Moonlight" has a ghostly effect, most obvious in the longer-sustaining bass notes that can sound like a distant gong. All these elements of the pianos Beethoven knew shaped the music in the first place, including the way he picked out high and low notes around the murmuring figure in the middle of the keyboard.

Trevor Stephenson plays the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata on a modern copy of an 18th-century fortepiano:



More Moonlight Sonatas on the Collaborative Piano Blog:

YouTube Moonlight Sonata Comments...Dramatized
Beethoven Faceoff: Myleene Klass vs. Wilhelm Kempf

Eddie White and Ari Gibson's The Cat Piano

The Cat Piano by Eddie White and Ari Gibson looks at the reason behind the mysterious disappearance of all the musical cats. This brilliant short film has been nominated for an Oscar.



(Via Mind the Gap)

MOAR KITTEHZ on the Collaborative Piano Blog:

Hello Kitty Piano
Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 11...Played by Cats
Nora the Cat in Piano Catcerto
Nora, the original piano kitty

Call for Staff Pianists: Meadowmount School of Music

Allison Gagnon, Director of the Collaborative Piano Program at the University of North Carolina School for the Arts, sends along the following information regarding several staff pianist positions that are opening up for this summer at the Meadowmount School of Music in Westport, New York:

The Meadowmount School of Music is augmenting its piano staff for this summer's session (June 26 to August 14) and I wanted to get the word out so that we assemble the strongest staff possible.

The seven-week session provides an intense learning environment for ca. 200 students in violin, viola, cello, and piano. The professional piano staff works with a large number of the string students towards performances in masterclasses and public concerts. The level of activity is such that those on the piano staff should come with a combination of extensive experience in the string repertoire (that means all the major concertos, as well as a considerable amount of sonata and other recital repertoire) and the ability to learn very quickly any repertoire they do not know.

I've spent more than ten summers on the Meadowmount piano staff. It's a demanding job, but it's also very rewarding, and it takes place on a rustic campus set in the heart of Adirondack State Park, but close to Burlington, VT, Lake Placid, NY, and Montreal, Quebec. Individual piano studio space, housing, and meals are all provided together with a reasonable salary for the seven weeks. Staff assignments are coordinated by Eric Larsen, piano faculty at Meadowmount, who is also the new Interim Director of the School for 2010.

All pianists who are available and qualified for a summer position at Meadowmount should send their up-to-date repertoire list (for violin, viola and cello only) and a resume of related professional training and experience to gagnona [at] uncsa dot edu. All appropriate submissions will then go to Mr. Larsen, who will follow up with particulars of the summer's work.

For more information about the school's history and summer program, please go to www.meadowmount.com. We hope to attract some great new piano staff members! The summer is most enjoyable and successful for everyone when we assemble an indefatigable team of pianists!

Thanks Allison, and I hope that you get some quality applicants for the positions from the ranks of the CPB readership!

Marc-André Hamelin's Ringtone Waltz

Marc-André Hamelin breathes new life into those pesky ringtones...



(Via Gizmodo)

Latest Articles on Music Teacher's Helper

Here are my latest articles for Music Teacher's Helper:

• 13+1 Resources to Help You Create Lesson Notes That Rock
• Using Music Teacher's Helper On Your Blackberry 
• 10 Ways to Improve Your Musicianship in 2010 

In case you're not familiar with Music Teacher's Helper, it's a one-stop solution for integrating your studio website, scheduling, invoicing, and other studio tools in one web app. In addition, MTH hosts a team blog that I'm proud to be a member of. An upcoming new release and redesign of Music Teacher's Helper is in the works for the coming weeks - I'm a beta tester, so stick around for some unauthorized screen shots of the redesign shortly...

Today Is Frédéric Chopin's 200th Birthday

200 years ago today (or perhaps back on February 22 according to his certificate of baptism), Frédéric Chopin was born in the village of Żelazowa Wola. Leaving Poland forever at the age of 20, he would go on to become one of the most famous pianists and composers of the nineteenth century. Throughout the next few months, I'll be posting links to articles, events, and videos that feature the music of Chopin.


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Some interesting contemporary views of Chopin can be seen in the recent feature in the Independent that portrays him as a temperamental and complex man of many contradictions. A quote from his student Zofia Rosengardt:

"You cannot imagine a person who can be colder and more indifferent to everything around him," she wrote. "He is polite to excess, and yet there is so much irony, so much spite hidden inside it. Woe betide the person who allows himself to be taken in ... He is heavily endowed with wit and common sense, but then he often has wild, unpleasant moments when he is evil and angry, when he breaks chairs and stamps his feet. He can be as petulant as a spoiled child, bullying his pupils and being very cold with his friends. Those are usually days of suffering, physical exhaustion or quarrels with Madame Sand."

Rosengardt's picture of his character is not kind, but it is completely congruent with Chopin's music.

Krystian Zimerman playing Chopin's Fantaisie in F minor Op. 49: