I’m delighted to be a faculty member at the 2020 Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival. This world-famous Summer school has been running for over 20 years, and is the largest of its kind. Offering an inspirational array of courses, individual lessons, lectures, presentations, and recitals, the Summer School boasts an impressive faculty of renowned…
Tag: Piano Lessons
The Classical Piano & Music Education Blog
Welcome to my blog and website. The Classical Piano and Music Education Blog is nearly eight years old, and during that time I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing every week on this site. I pen the majority of the articles and posts, but I particularly like to present guest writers and composers, who offer a whole range…
Master Classes with Nelita True
In many respects a master class is a public lesson, the audience eavesdropping on proceedings. Attending public classes can be surprisingly beneficial both for students and teachers, as we can all learn from observing the lessons of others, and especially from esteemed pianists and teachers. I stumbled across this interesting filmed lesson, master class, and…
Piano Notebook
As many will know, I enjoy highlighting piano resources and today’s post focuses on the Piano Notebook; a new collection of short pieces intended for elementary students. Devised and written by Spanish teacher, Juan Cabeza Hernández, who is based in Madrid, the project has been created to provide various materials, resources, ideas and activities for…
Painless Piano Playing Part 2
Today’s blog post has been recently published in EPTA’s (or the European Piano Teachers Association) flagship UK publication Piano Professional, for which I write a feature technique article. It’s the second article focusing on developing a pain free, relaxed piano technique. You can read Painless Piano Playing Part 1, here. In my previous article, Painless…
Let’s make way for the Ladies!
The latest edition of Pianist Magazine is now available and it’s an ‘all women’ affair. Spotlighting Isata Kanneh-Mason, who appears on the front cover, this issue offers all the usual magazine goodies; ‘how-to-play’ articles by Lucy Parham, Nils Franke and myself, highlighting female composers (Maria Szymanowska, Cécile Chaminade, and Clara Schumann), in-depth masterclasses from Graham…
5 Tips for Secure Coordination and Quick Movement
This month’s 5 tips for Pianist magazine’s newsletter focuses on the issue of moving quickly around the instrument. I hope it’s useful. Moving quickly and accurately can be tricky. Especially if fast passage work is involved. There are many ways to alleviate this conundrum, but one which can be really beneficial is octave displacement. Yes,…
Piano Workshops and Summer Adventures
I’ve come to the end of a very busy Summer. It has been stimulating and enjoyable on so many levels, and it’s a privilege to travel to interesting parts of the world, meeting and working with different piano students, teachers, music lovers, and (hopefully) spreading the love for the piano. Music courses, particularly piano courses,…
Touring in Singapore and Malaysia
If you’ve been following my social media sites, you’ll know I’ve been working in Singapore and Johor Bahru (in Malaysia) over the past week. I aim to organise several overseas book tours per year as I love to travel, and I also enjoy meeting teachers and students from different parts of the world. I’m extremely…
A Master Class with Jonathan Biss
It’s time for a master class. I haven’t posted one for a while, but we can learn so much from observing the classes of others, and I enjoy highlighting public lessons for this reason. To complement his series of concerts at Carnegie Hall in 2017, devoted to the late style, Amercian pianist Jonathan Biss gave…
