March 2009: Winds of Change
March 2009; Vol. 1, No. 2
We’re in the communication business. We may think our job is teaching little fingers to play, or furthering the mission statements of our music schools, or projecting our understanding of a long dead composer’s score to a passive but attentive (we hope) audience. But what...
March 2010: Winds of Change
March 2010; Vol. 2, No. 2
I recall that in my undergraduate years, eons ago, the concert piano received a tuning before every senior recital. The tuning often occurred within the hour or so before the recital itself; when scheduling prevented this, a sign was placed on the piano declaring it off-limits...
March 2011: Winds of Change
March 2011; Vol. 3, No. 2
In the ongoing effort to stimulate my students, I have occasionally tried an all-studio repertoire project. For example, in the winter of 2009 my students performed two recitals devoted to the complete solo piano music of Maurice Ravel. This turned out to be a splendid...
November 2012: Winds of Change
November 2012; Vol. 4, No. 6
A funny thing happened on the way to writing this column: I started questioning everything about this profession of ours. Even more than I usually do. In future columns I’ll get at more of this, but let’s start with the institution we call the piano recital....
July 2016: Winds of Change
July 2016; Vol. 8, No. 4
In the heat of this political season, the airwaves are full of talk about systems that don’t work, about reform. I recently gave a political speech of sorts at the MTNA national conference, not carried by any of the networks, in which I said that...