MELANIE SPANSWICK

Melanie Spanswick is a musician, educator, writer and editor, composer and teacher. A multi-award-winning author, she has written and published 33 books and is in demand as a keynote speaker, workshop leader, and presenter. A busy career as a pianist, teacher, and adjudicator has taken her to all five continents.

A piano faculty member at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Junior Music Programme and Guildhall Young Artists Online Programme) and Eton College in the UK, and she is also an Honorary Master Piano Teacher at the Tom Lee Academy in Hong Kong.

EDUCATION

Melanie studied the piano at the Royal College of Music in London, winning an exhibition scholarship alongside a collection of ten prizes, awards, and further scholarships. These included one for the ‘most outstanding postgraduate pianist’. She graduated with a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance Studies. Principal piano professors included Patricia Carroll, Tatiana Sarkissova, and John Lill, and she also worked with Yonty Solomon and Tatiana Nikolayeva.

PERFORMER

Performances and broadcasts include recitals as a soloist, chamber musician, and accompanist at numerous music festivals and concert halls, touring over ten countries. Venues include the CBSO Centre and Symphony Hall in Birmingham, South Bank Centre (Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room), St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. John’s Smith Square, and the National Theatre in London, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. Abroad, Melanie has toured Canada several times, most notably, at the Guelph Festival, and the Great Romantics Festival in Hamilton, held in conjunction with the American Liszt Society. She has also performed in Russia, at Tchaikovsky’s house in Klin, near Moscow, and at a series of recitals around the Netherlands for the Anglo-Dutch Piano Platform.

Recital performances have comprised a whole host of music clubs, societies, music festivals, and universities. Melanie has made a solo recording at Wigmore Hall (for Opera Omnia), has performed for the Queen Mother and Queen of Denmark. She has broadcast on Classic FM, BBC Radio, CBC Radio, and Swedish and Spanish television.

AUTHOR

As an educational piano writer and author, Melanie’s work is published by a number of leading music publishing houses including Schott Music, Willis Music Company, Faber Music, Shanghai Music Publishing House, and Alfred U.K. She selected the repertoire for the Faber Music Piano Anthology (Faber) and her piano guidebook, So You Want To Play The Piano? (Alfred) has received much acclaim. 

Play it again: PIANO (Schott), a four-book piano course, has become an international success and is now one of Schott’s best-selling series. The course has been translated into Chinese, published by the Shanghai Music Publishing House (SMPH), and it will also be translated into German during 2026/7. The Play it again: PIANO Prep Book, published during 2025, was a Finalist at the Presto Music Awards 2025.

Further publications include a two-book series for children, First Repertoire For Little Pianists, published by Willis Music Company and the award-winning three-book series, Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano (Schott). She has also compiled, annotated and edited a selection of Schott Student Editions, comprising a series of study aids focusing on educational music by female composers. This collection was shortlisted for the ‘Best Classical Piano Repertoire Series’ at The Art of Piano Education Awards in both 2024 and 2025.

From 2024, both Play it again: PIANO and Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano series feature prominently on the RSL (Rockschool) Classical Piano syllabus, where all the pieces have been graded especially for these exams and the books form an ‘own-choice’ alternative for students.

Several pieces from Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano feature in the new 2025 – 2026 ABRSM piano syllabus. The 2025 – 2027 ANZCA (Australian and New Zealand Cultural Arts Limited) Classical and Modern Piano Exam Syllabus contains a piece from the Women Composers Anthology on every grade and the complete series also forms a part module 3 of the ANZCA Licentiate Teaching Diploma syllabus.

WRITER

Melanie’s regular Pianist Magazine ‘How-To-Play’ column, for whom she has written over 70 editorials, has flourished into a commissioned elementary composition in every issue, as well as a bi-monthly feature for the newsletter. She has contributed over 20 piano technique articles to Piano Professional Magazine, the European Piano Teachers Association’s (EPTA) flagship publication, and has been a columnist for Music Teacher Magazine, penning a regular feature on composition.

Feature articles: Piano Journal, Music Teacher Magazine, International Piano Magazine, Clavier Companion, Rhinegold Publications, Pianofforte (published by Faber), Music ED UK, Tom Lee Academy website, South Australia Music Teacher Magazine, and the Daily Telegraph. Co-writing: ABRSM Piano Notes series (Rhinegold), performance notes for the 2028 – 2020, and the 2021 – 2025 London College of Music piano examination syllabuses.

EDUCATOR

Educational work has included examining for the ABRSM and adjudicating for the British and International Federation of Festivals. Additionally, she has been a jury member at various national and international piano competitions. From 2020 to 2022, Melanie was the artistic director of the Ars Nova International Music Competition, based in Malaysia and Singapore. Recent competition adjudicating: Singapore Performing Arts Festival, Beethoven Junior Intercollegiate Piano Competition, Montecatini International Piano Competition, London Youth Piano Competition, CMTG Bangkok Piano Competition, Thailand Youth Performing Arts Festival, and the G. Henle Verlag Piano Competition.

Melanie enjoys coaching music conservatoire students and she also mentors piano teachers. Student successes include prizes at both national and international competitions, as well as entry to music conservatories throughout the UK and abroad.

Piano course tutoring: Jackdaws Music Education Trust, Finchcocks Music, The Thinking Pianist, Opus One Music Festival and Summer School, First Education Group Summer School, and the Montecatini Piano Festival (Italy) and for 2027, the Pianissimi piano course. Regular workshop presentations have encompassed the European Piano Teachers Association (EPTA), a bilingual piano project near Düsseldorf (Germany) for teachers and students at the IKM, and serving as a faculty member at the Overseas Masters Winter Piano Academy held at the Yehudi Menuhin School.

Melanie directed The Piano Teachers’ Course at the 2021 Chetham’s International Piano Summer School and is a faculty member at the Tokyo International Piano Association (TIPA). She has hosted a series of online masterclasses for the First Education Group in Hong Kong and Macau, has tutored at the London Chinese Children’s Ensemble Virtual Piano Courses, and, from 2024, is working with Japanese music school, And Vision, based in Tokyo, giving online and live public and private classes.

WORKSHOP PRESENTER

Recent lecture and presentation destinations: Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Italy, U.S.A., Dubai, Oman, and Germany. Presentations include a workshop and keynote address at the 2017 UCSI University Piano Pedagogy Conference in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia); a lecture at the 2019 Frankfurt Music Messe (Germany); mentoring classes for teachers and students at the I-MEC and the Cantata Youth Music Scheme in Jakarta (Indonesia) as part of their 2019 – 2020 season; a two-day piano teachers’ course at Cristofori music in Singapore (2022 and 2023); a series of workshops at the Tom Lee Academy in Hong Kong in the 2022/3/4 seasons.

During 2024, Melanie undertook an extended tour of Australia and the Far East. She presented workshops for teachers and gave three presentations at the 2024 Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference held at Monash University in Melbourne, including a keynote address speech. On this tour she also gave various workshops and presentations in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, and Brisbane, as well as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Recent webinars and presentations: for the U.S.-based Global Piano Summit, Music Teachers’ Association of South Australia, EPTA UK, three webinars for Pianist Magazine, a piano teacher presentation for Hal Leonard US, and a workshop at the Music Education Expo 2025 in London, and in 2026, workshops and classes as part of the Guildhall Young Artists Online Residency held in Dubai.

COMPOSER

Melanie’s educational music regularly features in various piano festival programmes, and competitions, and has frequently appeared in Pianist and International Piano magazines, as well as in music exams and competition syllabuses. She compiled, composed, and annotated the 2021-2025 London College of Music Examinations Pre-Prep, Step 1, and Step 2 piano syllabuses, and nearly 60 original piano compositions have been included in the Australian Guild of Music and Speech 2026 piano syllabus.

Composition performances: Shiga Bank Piano Festival, a Livestream concert held at the Watsuki Hall (both in Kyoto), and a Chamber Music Series at Toppan Hall in Tokyo, Japan. In Europe, Melanie’s music has been showcased at the Montecatini Piano Festival in Italy and at a festival held at the Kolarac Hall in Belgrade, Serbia.

Recordings: ‘Enigma’ featured on a disc of the same name (released on Quartz), performed by dedicatee Yuki Negishi; ‘Heiwa’, written for pianist Aisa Ijiri, was arranged and recorded by AUN J Classic Orchestra for a single release on their record label: ‘Chasm’ featured on a disc of the same name (on Orchid Classics), performed by dedicatee Maiko Mori. Compositions have also been recorded for the Steinway Spirio piano, broadcast live on Radio-Berograd and RTS (Serbian National Television) in Serbia, and ‘Enigma’ was recently performed and broadcast by Yuki Negishi on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune programme.

INTERVIEWS

Classical Conversations is a filmed interview series curated by Melanie. She interviewed forty esteemed pianists and pedagogues over a three year period. These interviews can be enjoyed on her YouTube channel.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Since 2012, Melanie has published numerous blog posts on her popular website, which also features a large number of guest writers. This blog has received nearly 2 million hits. During the pandemic, she established a Facebook Group specifically tailored to adult learners. ‘Adult Piano Returners’ has flourished into an active group and currently hosts over 46,000 members. Find out more about this group, here.

Image: Sarah Barnes