Today’s post continues the Piano Pedagogy Series with Part 2 of four interviews featuring Chinese concert pianist and teacher Chenyin Li. In this post, we discuss Chenyin’s advanced study, research and her repertoire. You won a full scholarship to study with Tamas Vesmas at the University of Auckland. Tell us about your experience studying in…
Tag: Piano Lessons
Piano Pedagogy Spotlight: An Interview with Chenyin Li – Part 1
I’m continuing the popular ‘Piano Pedagogy Series’ on my blog today featuring the first of four substantial interviews with Chinese concert pianist and teacher Chenyin Li. Chenyin enjoys a busy concert career and, since 2011, has contributed to nearly 90 CDs and dozens of video performances as the exclusive pianist for Pianist Magazine. She is a piano…
The Béla Bartók Connection
The last few months have been all-consuming, what with the usual end-of-term workload, but when it was finally over, I decided to take an early summer holiday to recharge and revisit old haunts. Over thirty years ago, I visited Hungary to do some research for what I thought was to be my Master’s degree project…
Interpretative Guidelines: Rami Bar-Niv
My guest writer this week is pianist, teacher and author Rami Bar-Niv. Rami has written many articles for this website and today’s focuses on interpretation. You can read more from Rami by clicking here. A good start is the balance between brain and heart, which is pretty good advice for life in general. Brain is…
Piano Pedagogy Spotlight: An Interview with Frank Huang – Part 2
I’m continuing my series of interviews focusing on piano pedagogy featuring professors and faculty members of universities and music conservatoires around the world. This week’s guest writer and interviewee is American concert pianist and associate professor Frank Huang who works at Miami University based in Ohio, USA. In part two of this series, Frank answers…
Performing for Fun: 5 Tips
This article was published last month on Pianist Magazine’s website. Why should we perform? Many of us merely want to play the piano in private just for fun and most crucially, to ourselves. So when someone suggests a possible performance, whether in a formal or informal setting, we can feel terrified. What if we make…
Piano Pedagogy Spotlight: An Interview Series with Frank Huang – Part 1
I’m continuing my series of interviews focusing on piano pedagogy featuring professors and faculty members of universities and music conservatoires around the world. My latest guest writer is Frank Huang who is an American concert pianist and Associate Professor at Miami University which is based in Ohio, USA. Over a series of four posts, Frank…
Music & Drama Education Expo 2025
I’m looking forward to the Music & Drama Education Expo in London next week. This two-day event is held every year and has been through several transformations since its inception twelve years ago. According to its website, the Expo consists of ‘a mix of practical workshops, CPD sessions, seminars and networking for music and drama…
Composer of the Month at TopMusic
2025 starts with a bang! During January, I’m ‘composer of the month’ at the TopMusic.co which is an educational organisation founded and run by Tim Topham, a music educator who I had the pleasure of meeting when I visited Australia last Summer. Earlier this week ten of my elementary piano pieces were published by TMS…
Festive Greetings 2024
As another year draws to a close, it can be helpful to spend some time reflecting. As usual, it’s been a busy year for me and I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work with some fantastic contributors here on this blog and there’s lots more planned for 2025. I’d like to take this chance to…
Piano Pedagogy Series: A interview with James Kirby – Part 5
I’m so enjoying highlighting the exceptional work of many wonderfully dedicated friends and colleagues, and am looking forward to developing this pedagogy series over the coming year. Today’s post is the final instalment of my interview with concert pianist and piano professor James Kirby. In this article, James talks about his love of educational work,…
Teaching Observations: Fingering and Annotating Scores
Recently I’ve been working with a couple of students on a particular piece from my series Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano. Both students, who are adults, are preparing it for a diploma exam. As this piece isn’t on the syllabus, it will form part of their ‘own choice’ exam repertoire, of which…