Join Angelin Chang, the first female American classical pianist and first pianist of Asian descent to win a Grammy and first Artist-in-Residence at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. as she discusses the importance of advocating for music for all. Special thanks to our host for this episode, Andrea McAlister.
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To celebrate the latest episode of Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Angelin Chang we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Chang? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Chang on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
Andrea McAlister: I know we’ve talked a lot about music in the world and how we can make a change. I want to look forward now. We’re at this time where there is a lot of division and there is a lot of disagreement, and there’s a lot of tension in many places. Fortunately, we’re experiencing the opposite of that this week in this environment that we’re currently in, as we are all surrounded by pianists and teachers. We’re feeling it. How do we carry this out into the world? What does it look like? Let’s say, you know, if we fast forward ten years and say, “How has music transformed the world? How can we take this message out and really make a difference?” I know, we might think that—well just in my small little community, I can do a little bit. How does that change the world?
Angelin Chang: Planting the seeds does change the world. For me, I think the message is also understanding that the arts—music—is for everyone. I mean, a lot of times we’re talking about classical music—highbrow music—but, where did it originate? It wasn’t highbrow, we made it highbrow, so to speak. Nothing wrong with highbrow or lowbrow, or medium brow. You know? It’s for everyone. That’s one of the things I learned at the GRAMMYs too, because when I was nominated, I felt like, “I’m going to be a fish out of water here being a classical musician,” because all I knew was what I saw on primetime TV. But even then, going there, it was a community. Mutual respect all around for all genres. It wasn’t, “Oh, because you’re not pop you’re not hip.” It wasn’t that at all. It’s just that, you know, primetime TV, there’s just a small segment of what they could, you know, make money off of. Anyway, right, nothing wrong with that. Because those type of things would help fund things that were, you know, may need some more support? Did you know that the GRAMMYs is actually the largest fundraiser for all their activities, including a lot of great programs that help musicians in need, for example?
AM: That’s fabulous.
AC: Yeah, and we don’t see that, and not until I won, did I even know about some of these programs that were behind the scenes, like—oh, my gosh, there’s so much more. Just like there’s so much more here in our conference. Each individual brings so much, but, you know, the organizational part—to institute what we value in that sense that helps the next generation. Now with all the division and all that, I think partly it’s because there’s not this type of communication and understanding. So there’s the tendency for us to just be in our group that we feel safe and secure, and everything else out there is like, “No, no, don’t touch that.” Whereas I feel it’s the opposite that needs to happen. For example, when I went to Nepal and it’s like, “Okay, I’m very comfortable again now in this wonderful palace of a hotel and everything like this.” Yeah, it’s going beyond and actually noticing those things. And to be, “Hey, these are these are humans these are we can interact. We have something to benefit each other that can help make things better.” Or an understanding—it’s not that you have to agree with the other stuff, but at least understand or at least communicate. You can agree to disagree and still understand and have that common goal of making something for the better. Now, we can decide like, “Okay, we’ll try your way this time, try our way that time and see. Okay, then be objective.” I know it’s very difficult because a lot of times people don’t want to see that. I think part of it is taking off those blinders and just being open.
Even if you disagree with something like—how many times have you gone to a concert and it’s like, “Oh, I wouldn’t do it that way, I wouldn’t do that.” But you can’t deny that whatever they gave was like, “Wow, they worked on that. They made it special. They made it their own.” That’s what makes the world turn—embracing our uniqueness in that sense. And it’s great that we’re all different, but we’re all the same at the same time. Understanding that at the core, there’s certain things that we all want and that we all need. That feeling of security. There are a lot of people here where we’re changing the status quo feel very insecure. It’s not that necessarily I think that they’re feeling that, you know, they’re in the right, we’re in the wrong or just, they’re just wanting to hold power. Folks might lash out because they feel insecure, not because they feel powerful. I think it’s very important to understand some of the signs that we might interpret, aren’t necessarily what’s really going on. See what we can all do, to have that mutual understanding for world peace and human harmony.
AM: Just a small little thing we as musicians can, yeah—. I say it kind of facetiously but seriously, that music can do that as you are proving that day in and day out. We really thank you for all the work you have done and are doing to create that place that we all hope we can get to someday, but we’re also in it now. We’re also seeing how it’s happening.
AC: It’s happening.
AM: Music is that connector and it’s just beautiful.
If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Angelin Chang on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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We would like to thank Marianne Williams for this tribute to her teacher, Marvin Blickenstaff. As we continue the season of gratitude and giving, we pay tribute to piano teachers from around the country who are transforming the lives of their students. Students, parents, and colleagues are honoring piano teachers from their communities as part of the “Power of a Piano Teacher” campaign. We welcome you to celebrate your own teacher by sharing a tribute with us and donating to The Frances Clark Center.
I met Marvin Blickenstaff when I was a high school senior attending the Summer Piano Clinic at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1969. At the time, he served as the Director and also held master classes during the clinic. I played Griffes’ Notturno, Op.6, No. 2 for him in one of those classes. I had never felt the tenderness in this piece until he explained and demonstrated it for me. After the class, I wrote to him requesting that I be allowed to study with him at UNC.
I studied with him from 1970-1974 and I also took his piano pedagogy class. His enthusiasm for all the things that a piano teacher needed to learn and share in order to instill the love of the piano in others was contagious. My piano abilities were forever influenced by my studies with him. Shaping of phrases, improving the tone of a note, technical exercises, and learning to listen to myself were all new and wonderful things to me. He knew my limitations (small hands!) and quickly helped me learn to find repertoire that I would be able to enjoy playing and teaching! Mr. Blickenstaff also made me feel more confident in my ability than I had ever felt before. My piano training from him was complete and covered all eras of piano music. I especially loved learning all the Bach Two-Part Inventions in my freshman year, and still love playing them with all the ornaments that Bach indicated.
After graduating in 1974 as a Bachelor of Music Education with a Major in Piano, I moved around a bit with my husband, but in every place we lived, I set up a piano studio. I have taught continuously since then with a few breaks to have two sons, and I also taught classroom music for thirty years as well.
Thanks to what I learned from Mr. Blickenstaff, and what I am continuing to learn through articles, webinars, and the program at NSMS, I have an intense love of learning new pieces and sharing this love with my students. I still use the same method of teaching all major and minor scales that I learned in college and still have the original printouts with exercises and examples that he gave me.
I have lost track of the total number of students that I have taught since 1974, but I like to think that they are part of Mr. Blickenstaff’s legacy. He taught me how to interact with my students and inspired me to strive to instill in them the same love of music at the piano that he gave to me.
In 2023, the Frances Clark Center established the Marvin Blickenstaff Institute for Teaching Excellence in honor of his legacy as a pedagogue. This division of The Frances Clark Center encompasses inclusive teaching programs, teacher education, courses, performance, advocacy, publications, research, and resources that support excellence in piano teaching and learning. To learn more about the Institute, please visit this page.
We extend a heartfelt invitation to join us in commemorating Marvin Blickenstaff’s remarkable contributions by making a donation in his honor. Your generous contribution will help us continue his inspiring work and uphold the standards of excellence in piano teaching and learning for generations to come. To make a meaningful contribution, please visit our donation page today. Thank you for being a part of this legacy.
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We are delighted to share a few highlights from the work of young professionals throughout the United States and Canada. Each of these videos comes from our Inspiring Artistry video collection. To learn more and submit a proposal for a future Inspiring Artistry or From the Artist Bench video, please click here.
by Charlotte Tang
When approaching this Scarlatti work for the first time, Tang recommends the following as an initial focus:
by Mengyu Song
When presenting Nakada’s The Sad Waltz, Song suggests the following activities:
by Shelby Nord
When working with a student on the expressive elements of this Tansman piece, Nord suggests:
by Ricardo Pozenatto
Students often struggle with physical coordination. To help remedy this challenge, Pozenatto offers the following tips:
by Kate Acone
Before a student learns The Easy Winners by Scott Joplin, it may help to introduce the piece with the following activities that Acone describes:
To learn more and submit a proposal for a future Inspiring Artistry or From the Artist Bench video, please click here.
In this episode of Piano Inspires Podcast, Chee-Hwa Tan talks with Alejandro Cremaschi about her compositional process, the process of storytelling, and learning technique through emotion.
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To celebrate the latest episode of Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Chee-Hwa Tan, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Alejandro Cremaschi. Want to learn more about Tan? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Tan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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!
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Students throughout the United States responded to our call for proposals for the 2024 Collegiate Connections virtual event, which will highlight innovative group projects at universities throughout the United States. The Frances Clark Center is pleased to announce the selected proposals for our event on Friday, April 26, 2024 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern. Interested in attending this virtual event? Learn more and register by clicking here.
This presentation highlights the contribution of women who ventured into music composition when they were not encouraged to do so and were instead expected to take on the role of performer or teacher. To address this issue, we have selected three composers who were born in the second half of the 19th century in different countries: Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935) – Brazil, Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944) – France, and Florence Price (1887-1953) – USA. These women bravely participated in various musical scenarios and composed a large amount of music, especially for piano.The selected composers have vastly different styles, but they all have a significant number of works in their catalog that are suitable for intermediate-level learners and have excellent pedagogical value.
Elementary piano methods today utilize a majority of consonant sounding pieces in various styles. Rather than gatekeeping modern, atonal sounds to the advanced realm of music, it is both possible and intuitive to introduce the sounds of atonality to children’s methods. By presenting the concepts of bi-tonality, clusters, polyrhythms, improvisation, and more, young students will experience the sounds of modern music naturally. The aim of this project is to provide a model with examples of how these modern concepts can be reduced within palatable lessons to fit within an elementary method. As a group project, three pieces selected from various children’s methods have been creatively adapted to introduce contemporary compositional techniques and atonal styles. We will demonstrate how the original teaching music was adapted to incorporate a diverse soundscape.
Music and Storytelling: Developing Imagination through the Use of AI is an innovative workshop series designed to introduce young children to the narrative qualities in classical music through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our mission is to allow the endless imaginations of children to take form through musical stories created in real-time. Up until this point, we have tailored our workshops to the individual needs of various music centers, primary schools, and notably, children’s hospitals. The next phase involves refining our strategy to enhance the immersive experience for diverse demographic groups, while also examining the possibilities for fostering AI literacy through music workshops. This workshop series embraces a technology-driven approach to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and tangible outcomes. By combining music, storytelling, and AI, we offer a unique and innovative educational experience that not only teaches children about the arts but also ignites their wanting to engage with AI technologies.
Mélanie Hélène Bonis (1858-1937) distinguished herself as a fine pianist and composer, publishing over 150 works for solo piano. To navigate the societal challenges faced by women in the French haute bourgeoisie, she published her compositions under the abbreviated name ‘Mel’. Influenced by Chabrier, Chausson, and Debussy—fellow students at the Paris Conservatoire—her compositional style exhibits a unique blend of their influences. Bonis infused her works with a distinctive approach to rhythm, harmony, tone color, revealing a playful sense to her compositions. This presentation invites the audience on an enchanting exploration of Mel Bonis’ lesser-known gem, “Album pour let Tout-Petits, Op. 103.” Comprising a collection of charming solo piano pieces, this album is a musical treasure trove designed for the early intermediate pianist (Level 3-5). Dive into the whimsical world of this unknown Album for the Young as we unravel the delightful narratives encapsulated in Bonis’ miniatures.
Khanh Nhi Luong (Michigan), Le Binh Anh Nguyen (Cincinnati), Jasmine Wong (Michigan)
University of Cincinnati / University of Michigan; John Ellis, faculty mentor
Lizzie French, Sharon Hui
University of Colorado Boulder; Jennifer Hayghe, faculty mentor
Congratulations to all participants and applicants! We look forward to highlighting the outstanding work of pedagogy and collegiate groups and to foster global community engagement among our collegiate cohorts and faculty. Learn more and register by clicking here.
We would like to thank Sara Ernst for this article about our 2024 Summer Intensive Seminars. Interested in learning more about our 2024 Summer Intensive Seminars? Learn more by clicking here.
We are offering two summer seminars in the month of July: An International Exploration of Piano Teaching Literature on Monday-Tuesday, July 8-9, and Teaching Elementary Pianists on Friday-Saturday, July 12-13. In the first seminar, learn about world cultures and great repertoire for the teaching studio. The second seminar offers an overview of best teaching practices for working with young piano learners. Both seminars will jump-start your fall planning through new ideas for repertoire and curricular principles for elementary pianists.
International Exploration of Teaching Literature is led by Leah Claiborne and Luis Sanchez, with presentations and panels by guest speakers Gulimina Mahamuti, J. P. Murphy, William Chapman Nyaho, and Omar Roy. Teaching Elementary Pianists is led by Sara Ernst with presentations, demonstrations, and panels presented by Marvin Blickenstaff, Scott Donald, Judith Jain, Andrea McAlister, Rebecca Pennington, Craig Sale, and Janet Tschida.
Session leaders and guest presenters have structured the seminar program to include discussion and dialogue. There is purposeful time planned for the application of principles, collective brainstorming, asking questions, and sharing personal experiences and ideas.
No travel required and no extra cost for accommodations. These real-time, interactive seminars can be joined from the comfort of your home (or summer home!) and will be held over Zoom. Early bird registration is just $275, discounted registration for subscribers is $249, and discounted student registration is $175. Regardless of your location, it is easy to join us online!
Each day of the seminar runs from 12:00 PM EDT and concludes at 5:00 PM EDT, with short, programmed breaks throughout the five-hour time block. This real-time program is available across many time zones!
Join us! Register today to secure your early-bird registration at https://pianoinspires.com/summerseminars/.
We would like to thank Carla Salas-Ruiz for this contribution on writing articles for research publications such as the Journal of Piano Research. Learn more about the Journal of Piano Research by clicking here.
Writing, akin to music, provides a platform for self-expression. It also fosters critical thinking and enables us to articulate diverse perspectives, integrate information, and contribute to the advancement of our discipline. Yet, it’s common for many of us to feel a bit lost, unsure of where to even start. Have you ever found yourself facing a blank page, unsure of what to write or how to transform your project or research study into a compelling and engaging work? I have experienced this scenario several times. However, it wasn’t until I drew parallels between piano practice, lesson planning, and writing that a breakthrough occurred. I am excited to share these connections and encourage you to view academic writing as an art form for which you already possess all the necessary tools. Now is the time to leverage these tools and recognize writing as a creative exploration, where intentional choices and practice yield inspiring outcomes, similar to performing a piece or teaching a lesson.
When practicing any musical piece, it’s crucial to grasp the composer’s expressive ideas and the essence of the composition to shape the interpretation effectively. To do this, we listen to recordings from other performers and study the musical language of the composer throughout their repertoire. Similarly, in writing, the initial step involves gathering exemplary articles from various sources such as journals, magazines, books, and other publications to identify essential elements like structure, language usage, and coherence. Deconstructing these articles, akin to dissecting a musical composition into sections and phrases, facilitates targeted writing practice. Analyzing the author’s intentions behind effective writing serves as a guide in crafting our roadmap. Additionally, extensive reading enriches our understanding and fuels creativity by exposing us to diverse viewpoints and encouraging critical thinking.
Having learned from the insights of fellow writers, now is the ideal time to establish a method. This is similar to creating a practice log, focused solely on the concepts pertinent to your topic. During this phase, your reading should be targeted towards understanding existing discussions relevant to your chosen idea. It is essential to adopt a systematic approach, meticulously extracting key concepts from authors and documenting them methodically. I recommend constructing a table with columns for the source, author’s name, key quotes, year of publication, and page numbers.
After completing your reading journey, it is crucial to define your idea or research question through discussions with peers, similar to seeking feedback on a musical composition. Sharing your ideas with others can be tremendously beneficial, as they serve as a sounding board, potentially providing invaluable clarity to your thoughts. For instance, during my time in graduate school, my focus was on studying motivation. However, given the extensive literature surrounding the concept, it was only upon encountering the theory of Interest Development1 that I could delineate the scope of my idea and purposefully devise a roadmap to satisfy my curiosity. This process was greatly facilitated by continual discussions with colleagues, friends, and professors.
With our ideas taking shape, we transition into methodological design, akin to selecting the appropriate techniques for musical expression. This time is about crafting a research question and defining a plan to answer that question. Establishing a robust research question is imperative, as it serves as a guiding beacon amidst the myriad of available methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, ethnographic, historical, and/or philosophical approaches. Developing a method involves meticulously outlining the research design, methods, and techniques employed to satisfy your curiosity. It will outline your plans for data collection and analysis. In an academic context, this comprehensive plan encompasses critical decisions about how we chose participants or composers we’ll study, what tools we will use to gather information, how we will analyze that information carefully, and what conclusions we will draw from it. We will also look closely at what the findings mean and how they add to what we already know, the ideas we are working with, and how they can be useful in our field. This thorough analysis involves looking at the results in connection with the questions we asked at the start and the big ideas we are exploring, while also thinking about what they might mean for other important areas. Collaboration could be key in this step. Just as we gather to play beautiful chamber music, collaborate with colleagues that may have additional knowledge in this area, approach them and develop your idea in a multidisciplinary way.
Creating an outline for presenting your writing is essential to maintain clarity and coherence throughout your work. Remember Step 1? This is where your grasp of writing structures and tendencies becomes invaluable in organizing your writing process effectively. Consider these questions to initiate an initial outline:
Ensure you iterate through several drafts and seek feedback from peers and mentors. Crafting a roadmap for written contributions ensures that our ideas are effectively communicated with clarity and impact, much like crafting engaging lesson plans or conducting focused practice sessions. Once you feel confident with your outline, begin writing without self-judgment; allow yourself to simply type! Stick to your outline, but don’t hesitate to make adjustments for better flow if needed. Much like practicing an instrument, this stage represents full engagement in practice: experimenting with specific strategies and refining particular sections.
Just as we can sense when our repertoire is ready for the stage, we also know when our written work is prepared to be shared. Whether through academic journals, book chapters, or magazines, sharing our work enhances communication skills, professional growth, and advances our field. Similar to selecting the ideal venue and format for a recital, deciding where to publish prompts us to find platforms where our contributions align well. After completing our written work and reflecting on “Step 1,” we can determine which journal or magazine best suits our work. There are research-specific journals as well as those catering to practitioners. Understanding the purpose of each publication can assist us in making this decision. In the music field, there are a number of journals, including Piano Magazine and the recently launched Journal of Piano Research. We should consider all options, and after reviewing previous research, we can gauge the expected contributions and target audience.
Recognizing writing as an art form encourages us to engage in a journey of creativity and purposeful expression. Through the process of exploration, refinement, and sharing, we achieve transformative musical and teaching outcomes. Just as musical performance brings compositions to life, as writers we can give vitality and resonance to our ideas, enriching our collective discourse and advancing our field.
Go to journalofpianoresearch.org/ to learn more about this new publication!
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We would like to thank Jane Magrath for this insightful article. Want to learn more about teaching piano technique? Join us on Wednesday, April 17th at 11:00am ET for our latest webinar, Foundations on Technique, with Julie Hague and Alejandro Cremaschi, host. To learn more and register, click here.
The first years of piano study are critical ones for developing technique in the young student. The extent to which various elements of playing are developed in the early years should be greatly expanded.
Central to the development of technique in the very first year is the establishment of a good hand position and the establishment of the ability to move freely about the keyboard. Equally important is the development of control of the large playing units-upper arm, forearm, and wrist-then moving to the smaller units in the hand.
How should these principles for the first year be extended over several years of piano study? Surely proficient technique involves most importantly the ability to control sound and tone as well as the ability to move quickly. The establishment of a proficient technique also involves the ability to playa series of patterns commonly found in piano music in a variety of combinations. Pianists at all levels concentrate heavily on the playing of scales, arpeggios, and chords (as well as double notes, octaves, trills and so on).
What do we teach, then, in the early years? Many teachers begin to prepare students to play scales using five-finger pattern exercises played in all keys. Some also use selections from,a wealth of classical etudes that rely heavily on passagework for developing finger facility in scale passages. The playing of arpeggios is often first prepared by the playing of broken chord patterns in hand-over-hand fashion. Other miscellaneous aspects of technique essential at this level, such as expansions-contractions of the hand, are taught through teacher-devised exercises or through various technique books.
Unfortunately, it seems rare for many students in the second through fourth years to extend chord playing beyond the playing of the common-I N6/4 I V6/5 I-chord activity in various keys. Chord inversions, for example, both blocked and broken, need to be carefully prepared and presented to students. The playing of triads up and down the keyboard (in the various registers) with facility is essential. Students need to practice, even at the earliest levels, voicing chords in various ways-balancing between the hands, of course, but also voicing the various notes of a chord within a hand for projection. Students should learn to play various chords and inversions after a bass octave to prepare for the “oom-pah-pah” accompaniments of many pieces in the intermediate repertoire. Finally, students need to experience the shape and feel of dominant and diminished seventh chords in all positions, and develop a natural feeling for these chords that become so important in intermediate literature. The facile playing of chords is an essential and often-overIooked aspect of playing.
All in all, we focus well on the what that is taught for technique (such as which chord patterns or which scale patterns or which etude books are used). Should we not be focusing more on how the technique is taught? At all levels, goals for technical concepts should concern quality of sound, the focus on the correct hand position and use of the fingers, the production of sound from the correct source, the correct physical motion in moving to a chord, and so on. To achieve a fully developed technique, it is essential that the pedagogical focus be primarily on how the sounds and gestures are produced and on listening perceptively to evaluate success. Technical development is most effectively, but not exclusively, transmitted through meaningful hands-on experience: private and group piano lessons, participation in and observation of master classes, observation of video tapes and live performances, analysis and listening in individual practice, and through observation/trial at workshops. (Recall how difficult it is to read a technique book on physical gestures.)
We hope you enjoyed this excerpt about Jane Magrath’s approach to technique for beginning and intermediate students. Read the full article including additional thoughts by Scott McBride Smith, Miyoko Nakaya Lotto, and Louise Savage by clicking here.
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We would like to thank Scott Donald for this tribute to his teacher, Marvin Blickenstaff. As we continue the season of gratitude and giving, we pay tribute to piano teachers from around the country who are transforming the lives of their students. Students, parents, and colleagues are honoring piano teachers from their communities as part of the “Power of a Piano Teacher” campaign. We welcome you to celebrate your own teacher by sharing a tribute with us and donating to The Frances Clark Center.
I often tell people that when I grow up, I want to be like Marvin Blickenstaff. My journey with Marvin started in 1999, when we both arrived at the New School for Music Study. During my time there, I had the opportunity to teach, perform, and most importantly, learn from Marvin. His artistry as a teacher and performer is undeniable, but Marvin’s most endearing quality is his humility and the way he challenges us all to be better teachers.
During my tenure at NSMS, I was presenting a solo recital and after a series of miserable performances, I really had doubts about my playing. Marvin told me a story of a recital that he played years before in which he wrote across the program – Fin. I was touched by his openness about his own doubts and willingness to share. As I thought about that conversation with Marvin and how he managed to overcome some of those doubts and fears, I decided to challenge myself to do the same. His sage advice helped me get past that dark period in my performing life.
Another incredible characteristic about Marvin is his ability and desire to work with students of any level. Marvin is perfectly comfortable working with a young child on “Engine Engine #9” and then spend the next lesson working with an advanced student on Ravel! As a faculty member at NSMS, I was able to observe him working with my students that were in the advanced program. There were so many things that I learned about repertoire, technique, and developing musicianship through those observations. I wouldn’t trade that for anything!
We no longer teach together but I still hear his voice and his wisdom when I continue to teach my students at my own studio. In fact, as I write this tribute, I have a student working on Grieg’s Notturno. My approach to that piece has Marvin written all over it! I am forever grateful for the friendship and wisdom I gained through our time together. Marvin has made an indelible impression on my life and teaching.
In 2023, the Frances Clark Center established the Marvin Blickenstaff Institute for Teaching Excellence in honor of his legacy as a pedagogue. This division of The Frances Clark Center encompasses inclusive teaching programs, teacher education, courses, performance, advocacy, publications, research, and resources that support excellence in piano teaching and learning. To learn more about the Institute, please visit this page.
We extend a heartfelt invitation to join us in commemorating Marvin Blickenstaff’s remarkable contributions by making a donation in his honor. Your generous contribution will help us continue his inspiring work and uphold the standards of excellence in piano teaching and learning for generations to come. To make a meaningful contribution, please visit our donation page today. Thank you for being a part of this legacy.
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PRESS RELEASE: 12 APRIL 2024
The Frances Clark Center is pleased to announce the selected proposals for our Collegiate Connections event on Friday, April 26, 2024 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern. Congratulations to:
Ísis Cardoso, Gregório dos Santos Oliveira, Caroline Silva
Georgia State University; Sérgio Gallo, faculty mentor
Justin Gjata, Boqian Jing, Anna Pastrana, Kyungmin Yang
Roosevelt University; Yeeseon Kwon, faculty mentor
Ashley-May Burkhardt, Le Binh Anh Nguyen
University of Cincinnati; Michelle Conda, faculty mentor
Bradley Bee, Helena Rosa, Ivy Smith
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Lynn Worcester Jones, faculty mentor
Professor’s Corner: Teaching Masterclasses
Khanh Nhi Luong (Michigan), Le Binh Anh Nguyen (Cincinnati), Jasmine Wong (Michigan)
University of Cincinnati / University of Michigan; John Ellis, faculty mentor
Making a Music Major: Helping Your Student Successfully Transition to College
Lizzie French, Sharon Hui
University of Colorado Boulder; Jennifer Hayghe, faculty mentor
Bowling Green State University; Solungga Liu
Cleveland State University; Angelin Chang
Fresno City College; Brandon Bascom
Georgia State University; Sérgio Gallo
Michigan State University; Derek Polischuk
Mississippi State University; Jenna Klein
Roosevelt University; Yeeseon Kwon
Southern Methodist University; Catharine Lysinger
University of Cincinnati; Michelle Conda
University of Colorado Boulder; Jennifer Hayghe
University of Michigan; John Ellis
University of Missouri; Wendy Sims
University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Spencer Baker
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Lynn Worcester Jones
West Virginia University; Peter Amstutz
Western Illinois University; Natalie Landowski
We look forward to highlighting the outstanding work of pedagogy and collegiate groups and to foster global community engagement among our collegiate cohorts and faculty. Register today to attend the event!
Susie Garcia shares how collaboration and creativity have inspired her musical journey in this episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast.
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To celebrate the latest episode of Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Susanna Garcia we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Luis Sanchez. Want to learn more about Garcia? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Chee on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
Luis Sanchez: So let’s fast forward to Susie today. You’re involved in so many wonderful things with eNovativePiano, with your work with Nyaho. How are you—or your work—changing our world?
Susanna Garcia: Well, it helps to be retired from your academic job.
LS: I was wondering that!
SG: When you’re working a full-time academic job, your commitment is to that job. I mean, that’s your obligation, that’s your responsibility. Your work should be about your students, nurturing them, giving them what they need to be successful in whatever they do, whether it’s music, or they change their majors and go to psychology. You still are there to nurture that. You’re helping to build the school, to build the reputation of the school, to support your colleagues. The school that I retired from—the University of Louisiana at Lafayette—that music school has a phenomenally collegial and supportive culture, which is one reason I stayed there my whole career, because I could thrive. The faculty, the middle administration, the upper administration, I just had support all the time, and you don’t hear that said very much.
LS: It’s true, yeah.
SG: And so it was a good place to work, but all my efforts really were on my obligations to the students, and frankly, building my resume. As a young professor, I had to have resume items. I always chose projects that I was interested in, I never did anything just to do it, you know, just for the resume item. So, when I retired in 2021, in May, I thought I had all the time in the world to take on all these projects. So I took on kind of a lot of projects.
SG: I think I’ll start with the eNovativePiano for just a second because it is a business, it’s a group piano multimedia curriculum. It’s a business that grew out of two teachers that wanted to improve their students’ experiences. Group piano is hard. It’s hard for college music majors because they have to get proficiency in something fast that they may have had no experience in. And that’s a big ask. We were not satisfied with the progress our students were making towards proficiency. I mean, they could pass their proficiency, but we didn’t really feel like they were really proficient, that they could leave the group piano classroom and use piano as a tool professionally as needed.
LS: Which is the goal, right?
SG: Which is the goal. The goal isn’t the proficiency. The goal is you are the band director or choir director you need to plunk out parts. You need to be able to read a score, you need to—maybe you are a music therapist, and you need some keyboard skills. You need these skills. So, we just started making materials that we thought—videos and audio tracks—that we thought would help. This wasn’t about starting a business. It’s nothing about the business. We started and we would post them on our LMS. And we just started noticing real progress, quick, and also a much higher motivation level. Students were having a sense of fun. You know, they were they’re enjoying the process, and they were more engaged. So we took these first five videos that we made to a conference, and people said, “Where can I get these videos?” So we thought, okay, well, maybe we should commercialize it. So we did. And it’s been a long process, but that’s eNovativePiano. It really grew out of a need to serve our students. To me serving your students is changing the world. I mean, I think that’s, we have to remember that that’s what we’re doing. If I’m creating more ease, for someone who’s going to be a music professional to go out and do a better job more easily, I see that as changing the world. That’s changing the world like one-by-one, which is important, of course. But then the other projects—and this is why I love working with The Frances Clark Center, because The Frances Clark Center has a really global vision. The Frances Clark Center wants to make big changes, you know. So it’s great to be doing the one-to-one change, but I also like being associated with an organization that’s trying to do things in a bigger way.
SG: So my other current project is researching the music of Thomas Henderson Kerr, Jr. who, if you don’t know his name, when you’re listening to this podcast, I hope you will in another year. So briefly, Thomas Henderson Kerr, Jr. was an African American composer who died in the 1980s. He was a professor at Howard University for mostly his whole career. Well, he composed a lot of pieces, piano works, choral works, organ works—he was also an organist. None of his piano works—and very few, just maybe two of his organ works are appearing in anthologies—but none of his piano works have been published. All his music and his papers are in fourteen boxes in the Schomburg Center for Black Cultural Studies in New York City.
SG: The story of how I came to be interested in Thomas Kerr is too long to tell, but a manuscript came to Nyaho’s and my inboxes from somebody who had a 20,000 times Xerox version of this two-piano piece. And so we learned it and we loved it. It’s on our latest CD, but we’ve been touring with it, and it’s a concert scherzo, a set of variations based on the Negro spiritual, “Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel?” It’s a fantastic piece, it’s a fantastic piece. Where has it been? It was written in 1940! And it’s in a box. The crime here to me is that if there hadn’t been this accidental email, this piece would be completely forgotten history.
SG: So this is how I feel like I’m trying to change the world anyway. I’m not just bringing this piece to light, but with The Frances Clark Center, who is going to publish this piece, we’re going to also publish two more of his piano works. That’s, to me, a huge accomplishment, but what I want to inspire others to do is to understand that there are boxes like this, in every archive, in every library all over the world waiting for to be discovered. And you know, and there’s reasons this music wasn’t published, which I’m not going to go into, and I’m not even sure what the reasons are—I can just kind of guess. But I don’t know for sure. But I’m going to promise you that there are going to be dozens, if not hundreds, of African American composers whose music has never been published. This is why history is important, and this is why honesty about history is important. I do think it’s important to know why the music wasn’t published. I’m just not able to say for sure why that was. But I think that’s part of the research process. I hope, if you’re a young pianist, or young scholar, hearing this podcast and and looking for a topic for your doctoral work—
LS: To direct your attention to.
SG: You know, just going into these libraries and cataloging what’s in there for the world to see, would be changing the world and being truthful and honest about music history, and for African Americans, that experience in the United States. I think that history is a little bit under attack right now, and I’m going to be the first one to say, history is what keeps us moving forward, as a people, as a culture, as Americans. History is what keeps us grounded and tied to our past, and gives us the ability to have a future that is equitable.
If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Susanna Garcia on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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We would like to thank Savannah Royston for this insightful article on The New School for Music Study’s Postgraduate Teaching Program. Want to learn more about the Postgraduate Teaching Program? Learn more and apply by clicking here.
When I began the Postgraduate Teaching Program at The New School for Music Study, I knew three things: I knew that I loved teaching, I knew that I wanted a career in teaching, and I knew that I desperately needed guidance if I was going to make that dream a reality. Little did I know how this program would impact my teaching, my career, and myself as a person.
In a conversation at the beginning of my experience, the educational director referred to this year as an extended practicum, which I would soon discover to be an apt label. When I moved here, I was fresh out of graduate school, brimming with a multitude of pedagogical ideas from my graduate courses. Although I was lucky enough to have had some teaching experience even while enrolled as a full-time student, this fellowship was a unique position for me because for the first time in my life, my main priority every day was my piano students. I was able to see firsthand how all of the pedagogical tools lining my teacher tool belt would play out in real time. As with all of life, anything theoretical becomes an entirely new experience when nestled within the person sitting across from me. I learned how to plan effectively and efficiently, as well as what to do when plans are derailed. I learned how to respond to unexpected behaviors, obstacles, and attitudes. I learned how to go from working with young children, to adults, and every age in between. I learned how to teach group classes and how to develop classroom management strategies. As I try to summarize an entire year in a few sentences, I realize that I cannot overestimate how transformative this practicum was to all aspects of my teaching.
After beginning my year at the New School, I realized that all of the rumors I had heard about the school were true—the faculty really are a tight-knit community of kind people who look out for each other in any way they can. As a young teacher who moved alone to a region of the country where I knew no one, these people became my network of support instantaneously. If I ever had questions, I learned quickly that I could ask any of my coworkers. Regardless of what was happening, they would take a moment out of their busy schedule to help me find a book, locate a teaching manipulative, or wrestle with our feisty printers. Every single employee at the school has a wealth of knowledge and expertise that they share generously. The New School is a vibrantly varied community, as we have teachers at every level of experience, none more vital or irreplaceable than the next.
When I graduated from school, I knew that I loved teaching, and I knew I wanted to pursue a career that involved teaching. I had been given glimmers of this during my graduate school experience, but I had no idea what lay in store for me over the course of this year. I have seen my students laugh and cry, feel joy and frustration, experience surges and declines in motivation, and so many other aspects of the human experience—all reflected in a simple piano lesson. I have seen my students grow in skills and expertise, learning new pieces and advancing into new books. I have seen my students prepare for the rigors of performance and score extremely well in festivals. But most importantly, I have seen my students grow in confidence, blossoming into individuals who feel capable, empathetic, and brave, knowing that they can rise to the challenge. If my students learn how to meet challenges with bravery and empathy, then who knows how they are going to change the world beyond their piano lessons.
All in all, this year has transformed me in profound, meaningful ways that I am still discovering. As I step into the future, I move forward knowing I now have a wealth of practical experience, a network of people cheering me on, and an undeniable passion for the beauty of teaching. As an educator working to help others and change the world for the better, I often reflect on this wise quote from the philosopher Confucius: “Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.”
Learn more about teaching and professional development opportunities at The New School for Music Study by clicking here.
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Originally from East Tennessee, Savannah began studying piano with her grandmother when she was six years old. She graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a Master of Music and a Bachelor of Music from Lipscomb University. Her former teachers include Paul Barnes, Jerome Reed, and Elisabeth Pridonoff. Beyond teaching piano, Savannah has extensive experience in arts administration and is currently the Executive Director for the Cutting Edge Concert Series.
