02 January 2015
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful start to 2015!
My year has gotten off to a fun start so far! In the first week of January, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to serve as an accompanist in the Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition. I accompanied Petrina, age 9, a very gifted young pianist, who performed the Rondo All’ungharese from Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D Major. As Petrina’s accompanist, my job was to play a piano reduction of the orchestral score on a second piano, as is customary in concerto competitions. The first round of the competition was held at the Kimmel Center last Monday. It was very exciting for me to have the opportunity to participate in such a distinguished event and to play with such a talented young pianist!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful start to 2015!
My year has gotten off to a fun start so far! In the first week of January, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to serve as an accompanist in the Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition. I accompanied Petrina, age 9, a very gifted young pianist, who performed the Rondo All’ungharese from Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D Major. As Petrina’s accompanist, my job was to play a piano reduction of the orchestral score on a second piano, as is customary in concerto competitions. The first round of the competition was held at the Kimmel Center last Monday. It was very exciting for me to have the opportunity to participate in such a distinguished event and to play with such a talented young pianist!
Petrina and I rehearsing for the competition. The Greenfield competition is open to accomplished young musicians living or studying in the Philadelphia area, who compete for the prize of playing a concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The competition attracts exceptional young artists, and several past winners of the competition have gone on to successful international careers, including violinists Hilary Hahn and Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg, and pianists Andre Watts and Richard Goode.
04 August 2014
Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium 2014: Recap
I recently returned from the Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium at Princeton, where I spent an intense and amazing week immersed in the study of the Taubman Approach. Students and teachers come from across the U.S. and all over the world every summer to learn about the Taubman Approach from the Golandsky Institute faculty, who are the world’s foremost experts in the work. It is without a doubt my favorite week of the year, and this year was no exception!
It is always fun to spend time with other Taubman students and teachers. Many of us share a common bond of having struggled with injuries prior to discovering the Taubman Approach, and possess a shared enthusiasm for the work and a passion for passing it on to our students.
Symposium days were jam-packed with private lessons, technique clinics, and some very entertaining and informative lectures and master classes presented by the faculty. Lecture topics presented by Golandsky Institute co-founders John Bloomfield, Robert Durso, and Mary Moran included analysis of running passages in Mozart, Beethoven’s Sonata Appassionata, and selections of Chopin’s music preparatory to learning the Chopin Ballades.
My fellow participants in the professional training program and I also assembled for classes exploring pedagogical and theoretical aspects of the Taubman work through analysis of passages from the repertoire, once again led by the co-founders. These sessions are always one of the highlights of the week for me. The opportunity to learn about the Taubman Approach in depth from such eloquent, knowledgeable, and dedicated teachers is a truly inspiring experience.
Another highpoint of the Symposium each year is the Golandsky Institute International Piano Festival, a series of concerts that are open to the public and held in the evenings throughout the week. This year, the highlight of the festival was a piano concerto evening with the New Jersey Symphony. The program featured three concertos for solo piano and one rarely performed concerto for four pianos! Golandsky Institute faculty members Sean Duggan and Ilya Itin, with whom I had the privilege of studying at the Symposium this year, each played solo piano concerti. Two Golandsky Institute students, Nathan Grabow and Sakura Myers, then joined them to play the concerto for four pianos. The concert was written up in the Philadelphia Inquirer! Check out the review here:
http://articles.philly.com/2014-07-20/news/51749864_1_sean-duggan-ilya-itin-mozart
As always, I left the symposium already looking forward to next year! Only 340 days to go!
05 June 2014
My piano studio is now on Facebook! Please visit at http://www.facebook.com/rachelspianostudio
04 August 2014
Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium 2014: Recap
I recently returned from the Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium at Princeton, where I spent an intense and amazing week immersed in the study of the Taubman Approach. Students and teachers come from across the U.S. and all over the world every summer to learn about the Taubman Approach from the Golandsky Institute faculty, who are the world’s foremost experts in the work. It is without a doubt my favorite week of the year, and this year was no exception!
It is always fun to spend time with other Taubman students and teachers. Many of us share a common bond of having struggled with injuries prior to discovering the Taubman Approach, and possess a shared enthusiasm for the work and a passion for passing it on to our students.
Symposium days were jam-packed with private lessons, technique clinics, and some very entertaining and informative lectures and master classes presented by the faculty. Lecture topics presented by Golandsky Institute co-founders John Bloomfield, Robert Durso, and Mary Moran included analysis of running passages in Mozart, Beethoven’s Sonata Appassionata, and selections of Chopin’s music preparatory to learning the Chopin Ballades.
My fellow participants in the professional training program and I also assembled for classes exploring pedagogical and theoretical aspects of the Taubman work through analysis of passages from the repertoire, once again led by the co-founders. These sessions are always one of the highlights of the week for me. The opportunity to learn about the Taubman Approach in depth from such eloquent, knowledgeable, and dedicated teachers is a truly inspiring experience.
Another highpoint of the Symposium each year is the Golandsky Institute International Piano Festival, a series of concerts that are open to the public and held in the evenings throughout the week. This year, the highlight of the festival was a piano concerto evening with the New Jersey Symphony. The program featured three concertos for solo piano and one rarely performed concerto for four pianos! Golandsky Institute faculty members Sean Duggan and Ilya Itin, with whom I had the privilege of studying at the Symposium this year, each played solo piano concerti. Two Golandsky Institute students, Nathan Grabow and Sakura Myers, then joined them to play the concerto for four pianos. The concert was written up in the Philadelphia Inquirer! Check out the review here:
http://articles.philly.com/2014-07-20/news/51749864_1_sean-duggan-ilya-itin-mozart
As always, I left the symposium already looking forward to next year! Only 340 days to go!
05 June 2014
My piano studio is now on Facebook! Please visit at http://www.facebook.com/rachelspianostudio
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