How To Travel to The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 without Breaking the Bank!

Written By Shana Kirk

The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 is just around the corner! With events running from Wednesday, July 23 through Saturday, July 26, the conference will feature concerts, PEDx talks, presentations, and more. Have you registered yet? Register today for The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 by clicking here.

Having spent a good amount of the last 30 years zig-zagging the skies as a music technology consultant, I have personally experienced nearly every curveball air travel can toss my way. In all this time, through quite a bit of trial and error and by picking up ideas from other veteran travelers, I have collected some handy strategies I find myself using over and over. As you plan your NCKP travel, I hope you’ll find these useful, too!

Plan Early!

The one advantage I have found over and over is that early planning pays off. Even if you don’t purchase a ticket early, you can start looking at prices and be ready to buy when you find a good fare. My favorite tool for researching fares is Google Flights. By setting up a fare alert at google.com/flights, you can receive notifications when the fares have dropped. You can also look at a historic price graph and see predictions for the dates you want to travel. Keep in mind, predictions are not guarantees, and you still want to purchase at least three weeks in advance when possible. Also note that some airlines, like Southwest, do not allow Google Flights to display their fares, but they will still be indexed in the overall cost rankings.

Be Flexible!

Fares can vary widely from one day to the next, so if your travel is flexible, it’s useful to check a day or two outside your target dates. Most booking sites have a grid view with fares for a combination of departure and return dates.

Check one-way fares.

While you’re researching fares, it’s often worthwhile to compare one-way options. Because individual airlines base fares on a range of criteria, flying with different airlines or even to different airports in each direction may save money.

Check ALL available airports.

Most flight booking sites allow you to choose “all airports” or “nearby airports” instead of just one specific location. Luckily, Chicago has two excellent and well-served airports with easy connections to lots and lots of cities. Each airport is about half an hour away from the Westin Lombard, so you might as well check both! Additionally, I sometimes even check surrounding cities, in case there’s a lower-cost option to fly to a nearby city and carpool the remainder of the trip with a colleague. Peoria, IL, Rockford, IL, Milwaukee, WI, and Indianapolis, IN, are all within easy driving distance of Chicago, and you may well have a colleague who would love a driving companion.

Beware of add-on fees and look for ways to avoid them.

Many airlines charge extra for checked luggage nowadays, and ultra-low cost carriers charge extra for ANY luggage that doesn’t fit under the seat, not to mention charges like seat selection or early boarding privileges. Some airlines offer subscription services or frequent-flyer credit cards that will offset these fees and sometimes even offer extra perks that make air travel more comfortable (like airport lounge passes).

Always check the airline’s own website before purchasing from a discount travel site.

With all of the tricky bag and seat fees out there, it’s often easier to purchase directly from the airline. Should you need to change flights, the airline’s own website will offer the most flexibility for that as well.

Save on ground transportation.

Taxi or rideshare fares can add up quickly in the sprawling suburbs of Chicago. Plan to share a ride with a friend or use a shuttle service (there are several, depending on your destination airport). There’s even a very low-cost regional bus if you are able to manage your luggage. Rome2Rio.com is a great site for comparing various ground transit options for your needs.

However you travel to The Piano Conference, I can’t wait to see you all there! Bon Voyage!

Register today for The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 by clicking here.

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

The Benefits of NCKP: The Piano Conference and Why You Should Attend

Back to Discovery Page

Piano Inspires Podcast: Karen Walwyn

Written By Leah Claiborne, Karen Walwyn

On Thursday, July 24th from 2:30-4:00pm, The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 will present PEDx talks, highlighting exemplary work and projects performed by members of our community. In celebration, we are sharing this excerpt from Karen Walwyn’s appearance on the Piano Inspires Podcast. Interested in hearing more from Walwyn? Register for The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 today by clicking here.

Karen Walwyn: When I went to [the] University of Michigan, then I met Dr. Willis Patterson.

Leah Claiborne: So, yes. [Laugh] Karen and I, we would both agree Dr. Willis Patterson is our mentor.

KW: Yes.

LC: Biggest advocate, [the] person you call [and] sit down [with]. Just the most beautiful person, I believe, in our industry. For those who do not know Dr. Willis Patterson, could you give a quick synopsis of Dr. Patterson?

KW: I first met him actually because he did a Black Music Symposium in 1985. I was a master’s student still at University of Miami. When I got to go to the symposium, I got to go as a student participant. And while I was there, I actually played. The chair of the piano department heard me play, and he said, “You need to come here for your doctoral degree.” Moving forward, I did receive a full scholarship to enter the University of Michigan. Of course, you know, I was the accompanist for Our Own Thing Chorale with Dean Patterson.

LC: I didn’t know that, wow.

KW: Yeah! For years, we get in the car, ride over to the rehearsals, [and] chit chat.

LC: In Jefferson Church.

KW: Yeah. But one day he saw me in the hall, and he said, “Karen! Do you know any pieces by any African American composers?” And I wanted to slip under the floor because I felt so guilty. I feel like I’m supposed to have known. But none of my previous teachers were on that track because usually, the typical repertoire for competition is A, B and C, but not including African American literature.

“No…?” He said, “Come here!” We went into his office, and he said, “Look around.” This entire wall, full of music and books and scores and records. [He] gave me the key so I [could] go in there and just study everything that was in his room. I spent years, I think, in his room.

LC: That’s incredible.

KW: Essentially, just going through stuff. And that’s when I said, “Why, I’ve got to do something here!” And then I came across Althea Waites’s album that had the Florence Price recording on it, and many other composers. So I said, “Okay, I’m going to do one of my doctoral lecture recitals on a composer.” I chose Adolphus Hailstork. And we got to have a lot of time interviewing him and learning his music.

Of course, I was chosen to do his chamber work, a trio for piano, violin, and cello. The last movement was in 11/8. I [was] like, “Look, how am I supposed to count? It’s like an Allegro, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11.” And he said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” I said, “Why did you make this so hard anyway?” That’s how we clicked instantly. “No, it’s 12-12-123-12-12 // 12-12-123-12-12.” I was like, “Oh, okay! All right, I understand it.” We started developing a beautiful friendship. Once I completed my lecture recital, his piano sonata, which is hefty.

LC: Putting it lightly, yes.

KW: That was on one of my lecture recitals. Later on, after I finished my degree, I was lucky to become tenure-track inside the dance department, where I spent my two years accompanying ballet and [teaching] some of the music teaching subjects there. It was then that I won over $55,000 in grant money to record the two albums, Dark Fires.

LC: Beautiful.

KW: Of course, Adolphus Hailstork was on that, Alvin Singleton, Tania León, Ellis Marsalis, and David Baker. The list goes on. That’s all because Dean Patterson came out to me and said, “Come here!” [Laugh]

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Karen Walwyn on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

MORE ON KAREN WALWYN

PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: This is What Diversity Sounds Like by Linda Holzer
DISCOVERY PAGE: Celebrating International Women’s Day 2024
DISCOVERY PAGE: Celebrating Black History Month
PIANO INSPIRES KIDS: Winter Issue Sneak Peak

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

This is What Diversity Sounds Like

Back to Discovery Page

Meet the Keynote Speakers

Written By Piano Inspires

The Piano Conference eagerly anticipates keynote speeches from Randall Faber, Sarah Hoover, and Stanford Thompson. Learn more about the speakers and mark this exhilarating conference on your calendar! Haven’t registered for The Piano Conference yet? Register here.

Randall Faber

Randall Faber has been a guest artist at universities throughout North America and Asia, including the Beijing Central Conservatory, the Shanghai Conservatory, and the Royal Conservatory of Canada. He has been a Convention Artist for the Music Teachers National Association and master teacher for the World Conference on Piano Pedagogy, National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the Australia Piano Pedagogy Conference, the National Piano Teachers Institute, and the Online Global Piano Summit. A Steinway Artist, Faber has given recitals throughout the U.S., Canada, and Asia. He has appeared on international television and on public radio in live recital broadcasts.

Dr. Faber holds three degrees from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Education and Human Development from Vanderbilt University. His research on motivation and talent development has been featured in journals and media in South Korea, China, Australia, and at the 9th International Conference on Motivation in Lisbon, Portugal.

Randall and his wife, Nancy, are authors of the best-selling Piano Adventures® method, which received the MTNA Frances Clark Piano Pedagogy Award. Published in 13 languages, their books reach millions of students around the world. In 2019, Dr. Faber was honored with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in Education from the Roland Corporation.

Sarah Hoover

Sarah Hoover serves as Associate Dean for Innovation in the Arts and Health at the Peabody Institute, where she is responsible for advancing initiatives that link the performing arts and health within Peabody, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and entities within the university and Baltimore community. Since arriving at Peabody, Hoover has advocated for the health of Peabody’s musicians and dancers by developing curriculum and co-curricular programs to prevent injury and optimize performance, facilitated the creation of the Peabody Clinic for Performing Artists, and supported the start-up of a research lab in performance science. With partners across Johns Hopkins University and Health System, her team is building out a transdisciplinary center of performing arts and health to advance health in and through the performing arts, encompassing research, clinical care, education, arts services, and advocacy.

Hoover’s research in the field of arts in health has led to the development of bedside and lobby music programs throughout the Johns Hopkins Health System and the development of creative aging residencies and sensory-friendly concerts. She has helped to develop Peabody Prescribe, a community arts entity within Peabody Preparatory, offering arts experiences developed in collaboration with researchers and clinicians from Johns Hopkins Medicine that support health and well-being. Along with her book, Music as Care: Artistry in the Hospital Environment, these clinical and community programs have built novel educational and experiential career pathways for musicians in arts-in-health contexts. As part of her commitment to artist workforce development, Hoover serves as board member for the National Organization for Arts in Health. Prior to her appointment at Peabody, Hoover was a performer, teacher of singing, music journalist, and festival director and received degrees from Yale College (BA) and the Peabody Institute (DMA.)

Stanford Thompson

Stanford Thompson (he/him) founded and led music education organization Play On Philly, served as the founding board chair of El Sistema USA, and founded and currently serves as executive director of Equity Arc. In those roles, he has led complex strategic planning and organizational design projects for local and national initiatives that provide equitable arts access for communities and artists.

As a Principal with Goldsmith Strategies, he has guided the strategic development of dozens of organizations across the United States. He has also collaborated with WolfBrown on strategic planning, program evaluation, and establishing new ventures with the support of national institutional funders.

Stanford serves on the faculty of the Global Leaders Institute and regularly speaks at major arts and business conferences and institutions. He has been a TED Fellow, presenting on music as a powerful tool for positive personal and societal change. Stanford holds degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory.

*Stanford Thompson, © Todd Rosenberg Photography 2022*

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

The Benefits of NCKP: The Piano Conference and Why You Should Attend

Back to Discovery Page

Announcing the Frances Clark Center’s Newest Publication: Easter Monday Swagger: Scherzino for Piano by Thomas H. Kerr Jr., edited by William Chapman Nyaho and Susanna Garcia

Written By William Chapman Nyaho, Susanna Garcia, Piano Inspires

In celebration of Juneteenth, The Frances Clark Center is pleased to announce the newest publication from Piano Education Press: Easter Monday Swagger by Thomas H. Kerr Jr., edited by William Chapman Nyaho and Susanna Garcia.

*Susanna Garcia and William Chapman Nyaho after their performance at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference.*

Easter Monday Swagger was composed by Thomas Henderson Kerr, Jr., and was completed on Easter Monday, March 30, 1970. It was written for and dedicated to Natalie Hinderas, concert pianist and professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hinderas performed Kerr’s piece, alongside works by other Black composers, in a series of recitals. This repertoire, including Easter Monday Swagger, contributed to her groundbreaking 1971 recording on Desto Records, Natalie Hinderas Pianist Plays Music by Black Composers.

Easter Monday Swagger is a sectional work presenting contrasting interpretations of the spiritual “Walk Together, Children.” Kerr’s subtitle A Fantasy “Romp” on “Walk Together, Children” underscores its playful and childlike character. Yet, Kerr balances a lighthearted, boisterous treatment of the theme with moments of depth and reflection. In the African American community of Washington, DC, Easter Monday is an occasion for community celebration. Kerr’s composition is almost certainly an acknowledgement of this tradition.

About the Editors

Duo-Pianists William Chapman Nyaho and Susanna Garcia have been performing together since 1991, specializing in both the standard repertoire and newly composed works. The Nyaho/Garcia Duo is committed to increasing diversity and representation in the repertoire for solo piano, two pianos, and piano four-hands.

About the Kerr Publication Project

This is the first published edition of this composition and the third in a series of three piano works by Thomas H. Kerr Jr., edited by Garcia and Chapman Nyaho and published by Piano Education Press.

Thomas H. Kerr Jr., December 1980; Photo courtesy of Stuart and Cynthia Reid

MORE ON THOMAS H. KERR JR.

PUBLICATION: Easter Monday Swagger: Scherzino for Piano (2025)
PUBLICATION: Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?: Concert Scherzo for Two Pianos, Four Hands (2024)
PUBLICATION: Dancétudes: 7 Vignettes of Dolls and Pets (2025)
MAGAZINE ARTICLE: The Distinctive Voice of Thomas H. Kerr by Susanna Garcia
MAGAZINE ARTICLE: William Chapman Nyaho: Scholar, Pianist, Advocate by Pamela Pike and Craig Sale
WEBINAR: Publications Launch Party: An Introduction to Thomas Henderson Kerr Jr. and Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?with Susanna Garcia and William Chapman Nyaho

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

The Distinctive Voice of Thomas H. Kerr

Back to Discovery Page

The Frances Clark Center Releases Easter Monday Swagger in Celebration of Juneteenth

Written By Piano Inspires

PRESS RELEASE: 19 JUNE 2025

The Frances Clark Center announces the release of Easter Monday Swagger: Scherzino for Piano by Thomas H. Kerr Jr., edited by William Chapman Nyaho and Susanna Garcia. Published by Piano Education Press, this edition commemorates Juneteenth with the publication of a joyful, historically rich work that contributes meaningfully to the canon of African American classical music.

Completed on Easter Monday in 1970, Easter Monday Swagger was written for and dedicated to Natalie Hinderas, the distinguished concert pianist and longtime professor at Temple University. Hinderas performed the piece in a series of recitals highlighting works by Black composers, culminating in her groundbreaking 1971 recording Natalie Hinderas Pianist Plays Music by Black Composers on Dest Records.

Easter Monday Swagger is a sectional work that offers contrasting interpretations of the spiritual “Walk Together, Children.” Subtitled A Fantasy “Romp” on “Walk Together, Children,” the piece blends playful, exuberant textures with moments of depth and reflection. The composition almost certainly honors the tradition of Easter Monday as a day of communal celebration within the African American community of Washington, D.C.

This is the first published edition of the work and the third release in a series of piano compositions by Thomas H. Kerr Jr., edited by Chapman Nyaho and Garcia for Piano Education Press. Titles in the series include Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?: Concert Scherzo for Two Pianos, Four Hands and Dancétudes: 7 Vignettes of Dolls and Pets.

The editors, duo-pianists William Chapman Nyaho and Susanna Garcia, have performed together since 1991 and are recognized for their commitment to expanding diversity in piano literature. Their editorial work on this series continues to elevate the artistry and cultural contributions of Thomas H. Kerr Jr.

Easter Monday Swagger is now available through Piano Education Press.

Piano Inspires Podcast: Leila Viss

Written By Leila Viss, Andrea McAlister

As we get closer to The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 this July, we invite you to register for our 2025 Gala, celebrating our 2025 Lifetime Achievement Outstanding Service Award recipients. The Frances Clark Center celebrates its Outstanding Service Award recipients with special re-releases of podcast episodes. Congratulations to Leila Viss for this recognition! Register by clicking here.

Andrea McAlister: I do want to go back a little bit to the work you’re doing now, because you are offering a lot of online tools for teachers. I’m really curious about your “composiums” here. So, can you tell me about the work you’re doing now with other teachers around the world?

Leila Viss: Well, I think it comes down to the fact that making music was so important to me. And I am not a published composer or arranger, but I started arranging a lot of things myself, and I loved that. You know, the world faded away when I was working on that project. I’m like, this is feeding my soul. I wonder if other people need to have this too. And then I also created something called Cookie Cutter Composing, which was helping my students compose, and we did eight bars at a time. So we did, you know, section A, then Section B, section A, and it was very rigid, some people would call it, but we were very successful with it. It just happened to come out right before the accident, and then COVID happened. And so I did this with all my students online, and it was perfect. We used Noteflight, so I could see their accounts, all that kind of stuff. So it was, you know, it really helped us all get through a rough time, because we could at least do that creating, you know, yeah, they could play piano.

But then I sold that resource, but I noticed that people still had questions on it. Teachers were like, well, how do you do this? How do you do that? And I thought, “You know what, I wonder if I need to have some kind of workshop that could help teachers go through the process?” And I don’t know when the word “composium” came to my head.

AM: I love it, though.

LV: I like that one. And so I had that feeling of, you know what, if I build it, maybe they’ll come.

I was also inspired by my mother. She is a retired art professor. She’s a quilter, a nationally known quilter. Her quilts are all over the nation, in different galleries, and we’re not talking about just patchwork. We’re talking about abstracts, and they’re marvelous. They’re just absolutely gorgeous. But I was always envious of her, because she would go to her quilting workshops, and you bring your sewing machine, you bring your fabric, and you sew with all your other friends, and then you look over their shoulders and see what they’re doing. I thought, now, wouldn’t that be nice if I could do that with a group of teachers, so that we’re all in this atmosphere of, “Oh, what are you doing? Oh, that’s cool. Oh, I like that idea.”

So that brought me to this idea of, well, let’s have eight teachers, and we’ll do eight bars at a time, that kind of a thing. So we’ll piece together, just like we piece a quilt together, we’ll piece together a piece. And now I’m down to six teachers because that was a little bit much, and I have changed maybe a little bit of the format, but it’s a little bit of a piece every time. And then people come, they show us what they’re doing. It’s a very safe environment because I lay down really strict ground rules about how we give feedback. We don’t give feedback. We give feed-forward, those kinds of things so that people can feel comfortable and feel safe. Because I always, when we first listen to a piece, I always tell them that, “Doesn’t it kind of feel like someone’s peeking in your underwear drawer?” Because you know, you’re being very vulnerable, right?

AM: It does take a lot of courage.

LV: It takes courage, and so I do a lot of mindset things, all those kinds of things, just to get them in the right place.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Leila Viss on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

MORE ON LEILA VISS

WEBINAR: Creative Solutions for Online Studio Recitals with Sara Ernst, Rebecca Pennington, Anna Beth Rucker, and Leila Viss
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Practicing with Backing Tracks by Bradley Sowash
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: May 2018: First Looks: Apps for Teaching by Leila Viss
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Yes, Technology Can Simplify Your Hectic Teaching Life! by George Litterst, Anna Fagan, Jennifer Foxx, Megan Hughes, Ellen Johansen, Adrienne McKinney, Patti Robertson, and Leila Viss
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Creating by Chance by Bradley Sowash

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

May 2018: First Looks: Apps for Teaching

Back to Discovery Page

Piano Inspires Podcast: Spencer Myer

Written By Spencer Myer, Jennifer Snow

As we get closer to The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 this July, we invite you to register for our conference and join us in Lombard, Illinois. Additionally, we invite you to join us at a conference Gala celebrating our 2025 Lifetime Achievement Outstanding Service Award recipients. The Frances Clark Center celebrates its Outstanding Service Award recipients with special re-releases of podcast episodes. Congratulations to Spencer Myer for this recognition! Register by clicking here.

Jennifer Snow: You’ve gone through all these amazing successes with competitions and started to understand yourself as an artist. That all starts to clue up for yourself. You’ve got a career, you’re performing, you’ve got your management, and you’re a Steinway artist, and you’re on your way. Where’s the teaching pull? When does that start to come in, and how does that all come together for you?

Spencer Myer: It was always something I was interested in. I started teaching beginners when I was twelve. I had a paper route from age nine to twelve, and then I thought, “I could at least just advertise on my street for piano lessons and start teaching piano lessons. Why not make money doing music?” That was always something I very much enjoyed. I did that, not as actively, through college, and then it stopped in grad school. I lost all my connections to developing students, and I was more focused on playing through my graduate school.

Then, as the performing career started to develop, and I would do various engagements, they would often come with a master class. So, the bulk of my early higher-level teaching post-grad school was master classes, which I always really enjoyed.

I always found myself conducting a masterclass a little bit closer to a lesson than a public display. I just started to see that, certainly in particular, voicing things about developing technique, and refining technique and technical problems—solving things—came quite easily to me because, I think, I was never a prodigy. I had some natural technique, but I had to figure a lot of things out. Certainly, because a lot that I did naturally, I developed a lot of inherent tensions that I had to get rid of, and through repertoire exploration and just a lot of observation.

Another thing I was going to mention about influences at Oberlin was the other piano faculty. I would observe their students playing. I would accompany a lot of their students on concerti, so I saw their teaching [and] so many of these different technical approaches. There’s Bob Shannon and Haewon Song, who teach the Taubman technique. We had a couple Russian teachers there who have their own approach as well. I just gained a well-rounded sense of how to solve problems. And so I became, very early on in this masterclass trajectory, very addicted to those light bulb moments. Students, where you solve a technical problem and you make something easier for them, and all they want is to be able to communicate themselves more easily at the piano. It is just the best feeling.

JS: Indeed.

SM: Absolutely the best feeling.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Spencer Myer on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

MORE ON SPENCER MYER

WEBINAR: Debussy: Feux d’artifice with Spencer Myer
WEBINAR: Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 31 with Spencer Myer
WEBINAR: The Possibilities of Practicing during a Pandemic with Andrew Cooperstock, Barbara Fast, Artina McCain, Spencer Myer, & Nicholas Phillips
WEBINAR: Let’s Talk About Practicing with Barbara Fast and Spencer Myer
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Engaging the Brain: Practice Tips from an Interview with Spencer Myer by Spencer Myer and Barbara Fast
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Spencer Myer: A 21st-Century American Pianist by Lynn Worcester Jones
PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE:
VIDEO: Inside the Studio with Spencer Myer
ONLINE COURSE: A Pianist’s Guide to Teaching Online

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

Engaging the Brain: Practice Tips from an Interview with Spencer Myer

Back to Discovery Page

Featuring The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 Exhibitors

Written By Piano Inspires

Register now for The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 and experience incredible concerts, as well as teaching demonstrations, peer-reviewed conference sessions, and more.

The Piano Conference: NCKP is excited to welcome industry leaders to our in-person event! See who will be there and take advantage of special conference deals and giveaways.

View the Exhibit Hall Map

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

The Benefits of NCKP: The Piano Conference and Why You Should Attend

Back to Discovery Page

Meet the Jazz Concert Artists at The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025

Written By Piano Inspires

The Piano Conference is thrilled to welcome Jeremy Siskind, Jeremy Jordan, Edward Simon, and Miki Yamanaka to the stage this summer in A Night of Jazz and a special Late-Night Jam on Thursday, July 24, 2025. Register now for The Piano Conference and experience this incredible concert, as well as teaching demonstrations, peer-reviewed conference sessions, and more.

Jeremy Siskind is the rare musician whose imaginative albums land on “best of” lists while his ground-breaking instructional books populate “best-seller” lists. A top finisher in national and international jazz piano competitions, Siskind is a two-time laureate of the American Pianists Association and the winner of the Nottingham International Jazz Piano Competition. A sought-after educator, Siskind has published more than twenty instructional books, including Playing Solo Jazz Piano and the Jazz Piano Fundamentals series. Besides Siskind’s own YouTube channel, which boasts over 20,000 subscribers, Siskind is frequently seen teaching on digital platforms like Tonebase, Open Studio, and Piano with Jonny. Siskind spreads peace through music in places like Lebanon, Tunisia, and Thailand with the non-profit organization, Jazz Education Abroad. Jeremy Siskind is a Yamaha Artist.

Critically acclaimed as “a clear technical virtuoso,” “a rare talent,” and “a true Wunderkind,” Chicago-born Jeremy Jordan burst onto the music scene at age nine playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in a live televised performance. Jordan was born into a musical family where his mother and father were his first instructors. They ensured his burgeoning talent was nurtured by a strong foundation in classical training and also encouraged his study of improvised music and composition. Jordan’s performance venues have included the United Nations Arts Council, the American Liszt Society, Concertgebouw, Tokyo Opera City, Prague’s Rudolfinum, and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. Jordan also composes solo piano music, chamber music, orchestral music, and electronic music. His most recent album For Flint featured several original jazz compositions and raised money to purchase clean water for families affected by the Flint Water Crisis.

Edward Simon, a native of Venezuela, has established himself as a distinguished jazz improviser, composer-arranger, and band leader over decades in America. Renowned for blending jazz with Latin American folkloric sounds, Simon’s profile has risen in recent years. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is a member of the all-star SFJAZZ Collective and has received prestigious accolades such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and multiple composition grants from Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program.

Japanese-born pianist Miki Yamanaka has called New York City home since 2012. Critics laud her “light, expressive touch and solidly crafted, mainstream approach,” while audiences delight in not only her playing, but her vibrant personality as well. Her most recent and celebrated release, Shades of Rainbow (Cellar Music), features jazz masters Mark Turner and her NYC rhythm section, Tyrone Allen and Jimmy Macbride. Additionally, Yamanaka has emerged as a leader of the “New York Scene” via her notable residencies at mainstay West Village sister clubs Smalls and Mezzrow. During the pandemic, she developed a successful in-home, live-streaming, weekly concert series cleverly titled “Miki’s Mood,” where she featured a veritable who’s who of NYC talent. She has a penchant for wearing her vast collection of kimonos for her gigs, proudly representing her heritage and culture night after night as she dazzles audiences around the world.

*Miki Yamanaka (photo credit: Martina DaSilva)*

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

The Benefits of NCKP: The Piano Conference and Why You Should Attend

Back to Discovery Page

John Perry – In Memoriam

Written By Sam Holland

The Frances Clark Center is deeply saddened by the passing of John Perry – virtuoso, mentor, teacher, and friend. His legacy will continue to inspire pianists for generations, and we honor his memory. In greatest honor and memory of his legacy, we share this article by Samuel Holland as it originally appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of Keyboard Companion.

John Perry

My first encounter with John Perry was at my audition for Oberlin, where I could see that many of the best students went to him. And there was one thing of which I was right away convinced – that the best preparation to become a teacher was first to become the best pianist. Mr. Perry’s studio included major competition winners and people who now hold important positions throughout the U.S. I may have been the worst pianist John ever accepted. But, did I work! At the time, he was known for not scheduling regular lessons. You signed up when you were ready. To him, this meant that your repertoire was memorized and up to tempo. He maintained that it took three hours a day to stay where you are. For undergraduate students, he expected at least six hours a day. Sometimes I put in ten.

Perry’s modus operandi

John Perry did not want to work on technique until your full recital was learned and being polished. He believed that technical work belonged in the finishing stages. The line of reasoning went something like this: Learning new repertoire is time-consuming and difficult. During that time, we make a lot of unnecessary movements and exertions because we don’t yet know the music. Once learned, the process of polishing is essentially a process of refining movements and control for expressive purposes. And so it is natural that most technical progress is made in the later stages of polishing repertoire. Time spent attempting this type of refinement at an earlier stage is wasted, or, at best, inefficient.

If I were to try to put into a few words what the essence of John’s teaching on technique was, it would begin with “one-ness” with the keyboard, a feeling that the piano is an extension of our own body – not something outside to be manipulated. The methods by which we produce tone are always based on what is appropriate. What is appropriate in Mozart might not be appropriate in Prokofiev. He gave us detailed exercises to develop “pure” techniques of many types: close finger, high finger, weight and weight transfer, rotation, open, flattened fingers that grasp. There was no one “correct” way.

I appreciated John Perry because once he took me on, he stood up for me. He fought battles for me. However frustrating I must have been to him, I knew he believed in me and this has continued right down to this day.

If I had to describe what was most remarkable about Perry as a teacher, it is most evident in a master class. I’ve never seen a student – no matter how bad, or more remarkably, how good, that he could not somehow make dramatically better on the spot. He has the diagnostic skill of a surgeon – a precise understanding of how technique works, an uncanny ability to observe and correct problems. His skill in English – the ability to say what he means and to make it colorful through metaphors and examples – is more remarkable than anyone I’ve ever known in any field.

Back to Discovery Page

Piano Inspires Podcast: Chee-Hwa Tan

Written By Chee-Hwa Tan, Alejandro Cremaschi

As we get closer to The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 this July, we invite you to register for our 2025 Gala, celebrating our 2025 Lifetime Achievement Outstanding Service Award Recipients. The Frances Clark Center celebrates its Outstanding Service Award recipients with special re-releases of podcast episodes. Congratulations to Chee-Hwa Tan for this recognition! Register by clicking here.

Alejandro Cremaschi: Where are you seeing our field going now? What’s your impression? Are you thinking about these things: you know, the classical music making, piano playing? Where are we, and where are we going? What do you see in the future?

Chee-Hwa Tan: I think that music will always be relevant. We all need that. I mean, we have this craving for beauty. Now, I think if we all insist on our little boxes, then we look within that box and say, “Well, where’s it going?” I can’t answer that. I think as long as we focus—as far as in piano and teaching—if we keep reminding ourselves, asking ourselves, like, during the pandemic, I thought we should be asking, what do they need? What does this student need right now? My grad students—everything has shut down. How about I just throw out my course and do a different—what do they need? Do they need all this content and information? You know what I’m saying?

Or do they need to connect because they’re looking rather depressed across that Zoom screen, you know, in their apartments? So I think that if we think back to what Frances Clark said, you know, that first you teach the student. And I say, I reword that, first you see the person, you see the person, and that person can make music, and that person could feel like an artist. If they feel a little bit like an artist, maybe not to the level of our classical standards, but they feel a bit like an artist, they are going to be hooked on music for the rest of their lives, and they will be supporters of the arts one day, or they may be innovative in their music. So, I’ve had to just move out of that box a little bit, and I was definitely in that box. I mean, you know, it’s been a continued growth process. I think that music, as long as we keep—we don’t become segregated or elite, you know, and I don’t say lower the standard, you know—but value someone’s music making. Find something, you know, that’s at least something that’s special. Try to look at it that way because otherwise, we kill our own joy.

AC: Right?

CHT: I was killing my own joy sitting there and noticing everything, you know, when that’s not the way it ever was anyway, you know? Now we are in a world of super edits. Right? Yeah, so I think there’s great hope for music. I think we just need to flex with it. We don’t have to lower our standards; we just need to open our vision, a perspective to the bigger picture. You know, ask us for that gift to be able to see the bigger picture and see people first, because people matter. I tell my graduate students that—as I was leaving DU—that people matter more than the product. People matter more. That’s what you leave behind: the people and the relationships.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Chee-Hwa Tan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

MORE ON CHEE-HWA TAN

WEBINAR: Composer Conversations: Chee-Hwa Tan with Jennifer Snow
MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Create to Motivate: Using Repertoire to Incorporate Creativity in Lessons by Chee-Hwa Tan
WEBINAR: Piano Music by Composers of Asian Heritage with Chee-Hwa Tan, Li-Ly Chang, Alexina Louie, Naoko Ikeda
BOARD OF TRUSTEES: Chee-Hwa Tan
WEBINAR: Composers and Music of Asian Heritage with Yoshiko Arahata, Kairy Koshoeva, and Gulimina Mahamuti, with Chee-Hwa Tan, Host
DISCOVERY PAGE: Create to Motivate: Using Repertoire to Incorporate Creativity in Lessons by Chee-Hwa Tan

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

Spring 2022: Create to Motivate: Using Repertoire to Incorporate Creativity in Lessons

Back to Discovery Page

5 Reasons to Attend The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 Online Event

Written By Sara Ernst, Megan Hall

The online event of The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 is just around the corner! Events will occur from June 6-8 and will be packed with music, social events, concerts, and more. With the event only a few days away, register now to gain access to this exciting event. Learn more and register by clicking here.

1. Accessibility

The Piano Conference Online Event is accessible internationally, and features live and pre-recorded sessions in 4 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Korean. To facilitate access, all sessions have English subtitles. This is a rare opportunity to learn from global pedagogues with intercultural perspectives and education.

Want to attend but need financial support? Check out these resources.

Plus, your online event registration can be used towards your registration at the In-Person Conference in Lombard, Illinois. Email conference@francesclarkcenter.org for assistance.

2. Inspiring keynote speaker Gilles Comeau

Gilles Comeau is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a senior scientist at the Institute of Mental Health Research at The Royal, the founding director of the University of Ottawa Music and Health Research Institute, the director and principal researcher of the Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory, and a professor at the School of Music at the University of Ottawa. He conducts multidisciplinary research on music and health, including the study of music and wellbeing for people with dementia, the impact of music on individuals experiencing mental illness, and the investigation of various interventions for musicians’ mental health.

His session will discuss the intersection of scientific research and music pedagogy, and will answer meaningful questions such as:

What can research do to contribute to better knowledge about music teaching and learning?
What has research to say about motivation or music reading?
What has research to say about pain and injuries or performance anxiety?

Join us on Saturday, June 7, 2025, 1:00PM EDT to learn more!

3. Opening concert

The opening concert features 9 international performers from our community, featuring a variety of repertoire across genres, including jazz, contemporary repertoire, and works for two pianos. Keep scrolling to view the program!

The Piano Conference: Opening Concert Program

June 6, 2025, 7:00PM EDT

Dongwon Shin and HaEun Yang

Song Suite for Two Pianos | George Gershwin (1898–1937), arr. Logan Skelton

The Man I Love (1924)

Fascinating Rhythm (1924)

HaEun Kim

Clouds | Florence Price (1887–1953)

Xiao Liang

Numa Ame | Zhang Zhao (b. 1964)

Natalie Landowski

Concert Krakowiak | Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969)

Daniel Baer

Dance of Avoidance | Robert Savage (1951–1993), II. Largo

Hyeji Seo

Nocturno Nazqueño | Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)

Molly Sanford

Jupiter’s Moons | Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945)

II. Europa

III. Leda

Pei-Chen Chen and Mengjie Xiong

Taiwanese Rhapsody for Two Pianos (1998) | Huang Huang (b. 1958)

4. Session archives

The Piano Conference Online Event archives will be available to registrants for three months after the event, allowing attendees to re-watch recorded sessions at their leisure, or to catch any sessions that they missed during the live event.

5. Curated committee tracks

Our 15 committees have carefully curated new programs for 2025 based on relevant topics in piano education. These selected sessions are integrated directly into the conference schedule. Our committee topics include:

Young Musicians: Birth to Age 9
Advocacy and Community Impact
Business and Entrepreneurship
Collaborative Performance
Creative Music Making
Inclusive Teaching
Independent Music Teachers
International
New Professionals
Performance Practice
Research
Teacher Education in Higher Ed
Teaching Adults
Technology
Wellness

Participants at The Piano Conference: NCKP.

Do you have research you want to share with the piano pedagogy community? Submit a proposal to NCKP by clicking here, or submit a manuscript to the Journal of Piano Research by clicking here.

Not yet a subscriber? Join for only $7.99/mo or $36/yr.

The Benefits of NCKP: The Piano Conference and Why You Should Attend

Back to Discovery Page

Exhibitor Profile Piano Technicians Guild

Written By The Piano Conference: NCKP

Exhibit Hall Map

Exhibitor Directory

Whova

Piano Technicians Guild: North Shore & Chicago

Booth: 604

https://www.ptg.org/home

We represent more than 100 years of collective knowledge, over 3,300 global members, and the industry’s only recognized piano service certification program, the Registered Piano Technician.

Primary Contact Name: Maria Pollack

mariapollock67@gmail.com

Download PDF

Showcase Schedule:

We represent more than 100 years of collective knowledge, over 3,300 global members, and the industry’s only recognized piano service certification program, the Registered Piano Technician.

5 Reasons to Attend The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 Online Event

Written By Sara Ernst, Megan Hall

The online event of The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 is just around the corner! Events will occur from June 6-8 and will be packed with music, social events, concerts, and more. If you have not registered, there’s still more time. Learn more and register by clicking here.