YouTube of Talk to the Hand from Jerry Springer the Opera

No comment.

Open Comment Thread: Healthy Hands in Winter

It's the coldest part of the year in many parts of North America and Europe, as well as one of the busiest times of the concert season.

How do you maintain healthy hands at this unforgiving time of the year?

Leave a comment below to share your trials and solutions in dealing with dry skin, eczema, shredded nails, and searching for that perfect brand of glove that can keep hands warm at -20C.

Robert Rogers Remembered

I was very saddened to hear about the recent passing of one of my most influential teachers and mentors, pianist Robert Rogers. Professor Rogers was one of the most encouraging voices in my undergraduate years at UBC, and it was his guidance and energy that eventually steered me in the direction of both collaborative piano and contemporary music. Many of Bob's students have successful careers in the fields of piano performance and pedagogy, and he will be remembered fondly.

Obituary in the Vancouver Sun

Entry on Robert Rogers in the Canadian Encyclopedia

Interview w/Mary Ito now on CBC.ca

My recent interview with Mary Ito of CBC Television's Living in Toronto aired this afternoon, and you can view the video of the interview (and Mary's piano lesson) here.

Steampunk Clarinet Gun

Is it a clarinet? Or is it a gun? Take a look at this weird Steampunk clarinet gun from 80GritArt otherwise known as the Kenny G Eliminator (and a photo of ann-dabney with the lethal woodwind instrument in action). Two questions:

1. Is it a B flat or an A clarinet?
2. What caliber of bullet is optimized for being fired through the barrel of a clarinet?

One can only wonder what will happen when this type of tricked-out weaponry reaches the hands of orchestral clarinetists, who may use these diabolical devices to wreak havoc upon unsuspecting conductors.

Follow-up Regarding Musical Theater CP Programs and Training

I've been receiving a few requests for information about musical theater programs for collaborative pianists. In the comments of my Degree Programs posting, I received the following from an anonymous reader:

someone asked about a musical theater accompanying degree program... i am very interested in musical theater accompanying as well and wanted to share how i've gotten my fill of it in school. i got my mm at university of michigan and am now getting my dma... they have a big MT department and i was able to work with some of the pianists in it. i took a year long seminar on problems one might encounter in the MT world (arranging, transposing, realizing better accompaniments than the printed ones, and a repertoire study) with a pianist on the faculty, then later played for one of their shows with another pianist/conductor. they also offered to let me accompany dance classes and rehearsals for that experience. if someone is interested in that line of work, i suggest that you look for a school with a good MT department like michigan, cincinnati, etc, and just make yourself available to the department. often, MT departments are hurting for good pianists... although, i've found keeping up my classical studies as well keeps me enriched. later in my life, i would be interested in teaching the MT side of collaborative piano.

Thanks for your story, anonymous commenter. The opera and musical theater sides of the coaching/repetiteur career track can often seem to be mutually exclusive, and I don't presume to know the ins and outs of building a career in musical theater. I'm glad there are programs and apprenticeships at places like Michigan and Cinncinnati that can help develop the next wave of musical theater pianists.

The Violists' Wall of Fame

After writing the list of Viola Concertos earlier this evening, I couldn't help but do a search for other, well, viola-related sites. What made my evening was Pete Levin's candidates for the Violists' Wall of Fame. Here are some of these illustrious individuals:

Willie Showup

Carrie DiPitzas

Eubie Hynd

Bjorn Deff

Izzy Reading

Maida Blunder

Frank Lee Tairbull

Yassir Heezbad

Carrie Oki

Fay King

Hyman Trubble

Skip DeRunze

Ewell B. Fired

Donna Day Evertune

Kent C. DeMusic

Candace Goslower

Gladys Overwith

Are there any other candidates for the wall?

The Core Repertoire: Viola Concertos

Here is a list of the most frequently performed viola concertos in the repertoire. Remember that in most concerto reductions, the piano part can be fiddled with to make it both more pianistic and more orchestral. In case you're looking for a more comprehensive list, consult the Wikipedia article on viola concertos.

Brandenburg Concerto No.6 (2va,pf) By Johann Sebastian Bach. Edited by Forbes. For 2 viola, piano. BWV 1051 (B-flat) arranged for two violas and piano. This reduction casts the pianist in the role of both orchestra and continuo. One of the most eloquent of the Brandenburg Concertos and requires an idiomatic sense of a Baroque orchestra's finesse and lightness. See more info...

Viola Concerto in D Major Piano Reduction. By Franz Anton Hoffmeister. Edited by N. Gertsch, J. Ronge. Viola. The Hoffmeister is another concerto for developing players at the intermediate level. Not difficult for the pianist and the Henle reduction is quite pianistic. See more info...

Viola Concerto in F Major (Piano / Viola) For Viola and Piano Reduction. By Karl Ditters Von Dittersdorf. Schott. This is one of the most frequently played concertos for developing violists. The reduction isn't terribly difficult, and only needs a few minor adjustments in order to sound more like an eighteenth-century orchestra. See more info...

Viola Concerto No. 1 in D Major By Carl Stamitz (1745-1801), edited by A. Weibezahn, N. Gertsch. Single piece and set of performance parts for Viola and piano. Urtext edition (Paper-bound). Published by G. Henle. An integral concerto in the viola repertoire, and one often played by developing violists as a transitional work between the intermediate and advanced levels. See more info...

Harold in Italy By Hector Berlioz. Arranged by Franz Liszt. For Viola, Piano. Published by Billaudot. Is it a symphony, a symphonic poem, or a concerto? Loosely based on Lord Byron's Childe Harolde, this wonderful hybrid work requires plenty of orchestral thought in order to pull off the somewhat lengthy tuttis. See more info...

Romance for Viola and Orchestra in F Major Op. 85 Piano Reduction - with Comments in English. By Max Bruch. Edited by N. Gertsch. Viola. Published by G. Henle. Some of Bruch's late-romantic writing can be a little tricky in this reduction, but ultimately a satisfying work to play. See more info...

Der Schwanendreher (1935-1936) After Old Folksongs Viola and Piano. By Paul Hindemith. Schott. This modern work is a mainstay of most violists' concerto repertory. The orchestration has a lightness of texture that is not always evident in Hindemith's piano reduction, and although mostly pianistic, you might need some minor tweaks in order to pull it off. See more info...

Viola Concerto, Op. Posth. Viola and Piano Reduction. By Bela Bartok. (Viola). Boosey and Hawkes Chamber Music. 72 pages. Published by Boosey & Hawkes. Unfinished by Bartok at his death, the viola concerto was completed by Tibor Serly. This late work requires a thorough knowledge of Bartok's unique orchestral sound. See more info...

Concerto For Viola and Orchestra Edited by Christopher Wellington, composed by William Walton (1902-1983). Set of performance parts for solo viola and piano accompaniment. 59 pages. Published by Oxford University Press. This is another of the most popular 20th-century viola concertos. This concerto demands a fair amount of practice and rehearsal but rewards the time spent. Take time to listen to orchestral recordings so you can capture the grandeur and humor of Walton's orchestration. See more info...

I HAZ Ginger

Many of you know that I've been a startpage junkie for quite a while now. Late last year I created a pagecast on Pageflakes that lists (nearly) all the classical music blogs and shows the RSS feeds of several of the more well-known ones.

Well guess what I got myself invited to. Netvibes, known as one of the leaders of the startpage field, is now in private beta for Ginger, it's next-generation platform that adds many social networking layers to its already wide lineup of features. I just happened to get a beta invite (via Facebook) and am in the process of creating a Netvibes Universe, basically a public start page that you can customize to the nth degree. Right now I'm creating a Netvibes Universe for the CPB, which is still under construction, but I aim to use it as a complete listing of articles and resources here and elsewhere that can be of benefit to those in the CP community. I'll be adding to it in the next while and will probably take a few more weeks or months to become a comprehensive resource.

YouTube of Keith Klassen Singing Maria from West Side Story

Those of you who are following the rising career of tenor Keith Klassen might be interested in this video of Keith singing Maria from a recent recital at the Heliconian Hall in Toronto. Brahm Goldhamer is at the piano. Turn up the volume for the kick-ass high B flat just before the 2 minute mark. You can see Keith perform next month at Tapestry New Opera Works' Opera To Go at the Enwave Theatre in Toronto.

Late Model Pleyel

Spotted in Paris. (Via Liliamanolova's photostream)

Star Wars Fantasy w/Anderson and Roe Part II

A few weeks ago, I posted about the first part of duo pianists Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Roe's Star Wars Fantasy. The eloquently arranged and played second part is based on the Force theme. A wikipedia commentator also notes that:

...the Force theme is most consistently developed and, consequently, most difficult to attach a specific meaning. This theme variously represents Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi and the Force from which they draw their power, as well as more abstract ideas such as fate or destiny. In general, its appearances mark moments of significance in the films -- due in part to its portentous minor mode and upward-striving melody.

“Good relations with the Wookies, I have.”

--Yoda

The Busy Season is Underway

This has been one of the busiest weeks in the last while, with a nearly full teaching schedule as well as the first week of staging for Opera To Go.  Most of my online time has been spent either trying to fix my router (it's fixed) or responding in the negative to accompanist requests for various auditions around town. 

Which begs another question: why is is that Toronto, one of the continent's busiest centers for the arts, is in the midst of yet another shortage of qualified collaborative pianists at the same time that there are supposedly a large number of recent CP graduates hitting the market looking for work?

At any rate, here is a great shot of the Distillery District (from **Mary**'s photostream on Flickr), where Tapestry New Opera Works has their offices and rehearsing space.  What an awesome area to work in.  The door to the Tapestry offices is just to the right of those steps, and the best coffee in town is right behind where this photo was taken from.

Vocal Teaching Resources

Sarah Luebke at the Music Teacher's Helper Blog has written a very useful list of books for the private studio teacher of voice. Among her recommendations:

• The Private Voice Studio Handbook: A practical guide to all aspects of teaching by Joan Frey Boytim
• The Singer’s Life: Goals and Roles by Clifton Ware
• The Private Music Instruction Manual: A Guide for the Independent Music Educator by Rebecca Osborn

Sarah's list of books on technical development is also very useful. Voice teachers: what essential books on teaching voice do you keep around your studio?

Just Wait'll Next Year

Thanks to everyone who voted for the Collaborative Piano Blog in the Canadian Blog Awards. Although I didn't make the final round, I heard from many of you who voted and voiced their support. And best of luck to the five finalists in the Best Entertainment/Cultural Blog category, whom you can vote for starting tomorrow:

Juice: Entertainment News With Extra Pulp
Nag on the Lake
Mike’s Bloggity Blog Blob
Food Court Lunch
Seen Reading

Collaborative Piano at the North Carolina School of the Arts

Update: the information below has been updated by Dr. Gagnon and can be found here.

Dr. Allison Gagnon sends the following information about collaborative piano at the North Carolina School of the Arts:

The Graduate Program in Collaborative Piano allows pianists to develop their collaborative skills and learn the repertoire of their chosen discipline through studies shaped by the professional mentoring model of the North Carolina School of the Arts. Enrollment in the program is limited to four students. Students in the program study both instrumental and vocal repertoire, but may specialize in one of these in their second year. An annual degree recital comprises highlights of each year’s work, and a quick study examination is the final test in the graduate program. In addition to projects undertaken as part of their major study, students participate in chamber music, opera workshop and production, and other ensemble possibilities. Students in the program share two rehearsal studios allocated exclusively to the program, and have weekly masterclasses in both of the School's recital halls on Steinway concert grand pianos.

Coursework in the graduate program includes two seminars specific to collaborative piano: the literature seminar, which over two years focuses on the principal instrumental and vocal literature for collaborative pianists, and the support skills seminar, which allows development of a myriad of professional skills for collaborative pianists. These seminars are also open to students majoring in piano and organ at the graduate level.

For complete information on the graduate program, and its curriculum, please see:
http://www.ncarts.edu/music/gradprograms_collabpiano.htm

To learn more about the artist-faculty of the School of Music at NCSA, please see:
http://www.ncarts.edu/music/faculty.htm

Auditions for the program are arranged individually with the program’s director. For more information and to schedule an audition, pelase contact Dr. Allison Gagnon at gagnona [at] ncarts.edu. For information on how to apply to NCSA, and for audition requirements, please see:
http://www.ncarts.edu/music/gradadmissions.htm

Financial support includes assistantship and service award funds in Collaborative Piano, as well as graduate tuition waivers. For current information, please contact Dr. Michael Rothkopf, Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies, at rothkm [at] ncarts.edu.

NCSA also offers collaborative training to students majoring in piano at the high school and undergraduate levels of study. As a result, the School of Music features a spectrum of piano support extending from introductory training for student pianists, to the work of trained professionals who are members of the staff and faculty. For more information, please see:

http://faculty.ncarts.edu/music/Rothkopf/Piano%20Support%20Handbook%2007-08%20rev.%20pdf.pdf


Thank you for your interest in the Collaborative Piano Program at NCSA!

Thanks for sending all that info, Allison. I get a lot of requests for information on collaborative piano programs from readers, and your information will help out a lot of prospective CP's.

WTO Audition Comments

Kim Witman at the Wolf Trap Opera Blog has once again posted a list of unexpurgated audition comments from the WTO audition tour, all anonymous. It's worth a read of the full list, to get an idea of the honest reactions of someone on the other side of the table in the audition room.

What is also important to realize is that there is no shortage of honest criticism for a singer in a university program. However, when a singer leaves university for the profession, an entirely honest opinion in the audition room is very rare indeed. Thanks once again to Kim for posting the 2008 list.

New Opera Documentary This Saturday on CBC Radio 2

New Opera, a documentary produced by journalist and spoken-word artist Madonna Hamel, will be airing this Saturday, January 19 on the first half-hour of Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. New Opera will look at the experiences of artists and audience members in an exploration of Tapestry New Opera Works' creative process over the last year. Saturday Afternoon at the Opera begins at 1pm EST on CBC Radio 2.

Dilettante Music: Another Classical Music Social Networking Site

A few weeks ago I mentioned Klassikal Musik, a social networking site for classical musicians. Well, they're not alone--Dilettante Music has also recently launched. What is Dilettante?

an online classical music community that harnesses innovative and powerful technology to connect users with music, and with each other:

• Musicians can find the audience they need and the friends, fans and colleagues who support them.
• Music lovers can find the music they want with a powerful and intuitive classical music search engine, supported by the most comprehensive data set available.
• The curious can explore and discover new talent.
• The newcomer can step gingerly into an otherwise daunting world with all the help they need.

Some of the features I've noticed are friending features (a la Facebook), user-created blogs, music listings (including a user's full bio, repertoire, favorites, instruments, skills, recordings, and influences), messaging, as well as downloads, which seem to be the monetization model for the site.

I've just joined this evening and it looks very slick indeed. One of the big differences from Klassikal Musik seems to be that new users are signing up with their real names, which points towards a networking model closer to what classical musicians are already doing with Facebook (event listings, groups, etc.). Unlike Klassikal Musik, which allows you to show either an alias or first name either full or partial name (or first name only to non-members), it doesn't look like Dilettante allows you to have an option on whether or not to display your full name on the members' directory visible to outsiders. The new users list shows that a fair number of English musicians are currently signing up en masse. In fact, I just sent out friend requests to a couple of Brit violinists I recently played concerts with.

Will Dilettante become the LinkedIn of classical music? Only time will tell, with more features slated to be rolled out in the near future.

(Thanks, Marta!)

Mansfield University Launches Collaborative Piano Program

Mansfield University of Pennsylvania has just launched a Master of Music Program in Collaborative Piano. The new program is aimed at two types of prospective students:

Professional accompanists who seek to enhance their skills and increase their marketability through an advanced degree in their field and recently graduated pianists who are interested in developing the skills necessary to pursue a career in chamber music and accompanying.

The program requires a one-year residency as well as two summers of online courses. Graduate assistantships are also available. For more information you can contact Dr. Benjamin Moritz at bmoritz [at] mansfield.edu.

Best of luck to the new program, which joins a constantly growing lineup of degree programs in collaborative piano.

Interview w/Mary Ito on CBC Living in Toronto

This morning I was interviewed by Mary Ito, the host of CBC Television's Living in Toronto, about the experience of adults coming back to studying piano after an extended hiatus. Mary also played a few pieces for me and I talked about various things that are covered in a lesson. The full piece should air on CBC Television sometime next week, and I'll post an update as soon as I know when.

The Opera Singer Network on Facebook

A few days ago, I got invited to The Opera Singer Network Facebook group. I've seen a lot of Facebook groups dedicated to all things operatic, but this one (created by Steven Hall in Dallas/Fort Worth) looks like it might become a winner. Here are some of the features of this recently formed group:

• member website url's posted
• spotlight member features
• audition notices submitted by a number of members
  
• links to opera resources, including a few great sites I've never seen before
• opera company links
• news features
• a very active and informative wall
  
• a newsletter of recent group activity sent via Facebook messaging

I'm not generally a fan of Facebook groups, which tend to have an initial flurry of activity, peter out, and then become completely stagnant. However, this one looks like it might just become an indispensable source of up-to-the-minute operatic information and discussion.

Gerald Moore Sings Ich Grolle Nicht w/Victoria de los Angeles on Piano

Yes, you read that correctly. During a 1951 recording session, Moore and de los Angeles changed places for an impromptu butcher-through of Schumann's Ich Grolle Nicht with the tape running. What is most notable about this recording is not that Gerald Moore's voice was so execrable, but that de los Angeles was such an accomplished pianist.

Vote for the Collaborative Piano Blog in the Canadian Blog Awards

The voting has started in the Canadian Blog Awards. You can vote here for the Collaborative Piano Blog in the category of Best Entertainment/Cultural Blog. The first round of voting runs until the end of January 21, after which the five highest-scoring blogs from each category will advance to the final round.

Thanks for your support!

Not Unless We Get To Play Ramallah

Noam Ben Zeev in today's Ha'aretz looks at classical musicians who either boycott Israel or insist on West Bank concerts in their contracts. At issue:

...music is inherently based on dialogue, inner expression and listening to others simultaneously. The fact that is also an abstract art, lacking words, ostensibly endows it with the power to bridge both sides, leading to cooperation and understanding between the parties. An Israeli violinist and a Syrian violinist sitting together in front of the same sheet of Beethoven in the Diwan East West Orchestra are having a dialogue. But, by definition, dialogue takes place between equals; it is hard to say Israeli and Palestinian sides are in equals in this situation.

The Evolution of Applause

Bernard Holland in today's NY Times looks at the evolution of concert behavior in the last 200 years and discovers that our current expectations of concert etiquette (be quiet during the performance and clap only at the end of the work) are far from common in the history of music. Some fascinating examples:

When Chopin played his Variations on “Là ci darem la mano” with orchestra, the audience bestowed its showstopping approval after every variation. As late as 1920, a Berlin audience was applauding Ferruccio Busoni in the middle of “La Campanella.”

Liszt, the composer of that piece, was observed in dignified old age, yelling bravos from the audience as Anton Rubinstein played Mozart's A minor Rondo. Hans von Bülow boasted to his students that his performance in the first-movement cadenza of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto regularly brought down the house, no matter that the movement wasn’t over.

Poll Results: How Much Do You Charge Per Hour for a Rehearsal or Coaching?

The votes are in and here are the results of the latest poll which asks the question:

How much do you charge for a rehearsal or coaching? Please convert your rates to US dollars.

And here are the results:

• Under $20 - 3.8%
  
• $20-$29 - 13.9%
• $30-$39 - 20.3%
• $40-$49 - 30.4%
• $50-$59 - 12.7%
• $60-$69 - 8.9%
• $70-$79 - 2.5%
• $80-$89 - 1.3%
• $90-$99 - 0%
• Over $100 - 6.3%
  

Here are the same results in a pie chart:




This Google map of the 79 respondents gives you an idea of where everyone was located who took the poll. The respondents were overwhelmingly located in Canada and the United States, which minimizes the effect of currency fluctuations (since the CDN$ and US$ are effectively at par right now).

An anonymous reader left the following comment:

I think many of us are often unclear or shy about what to charge--something our plumber or dentist or people in other professions would never flinch about. A discussion of the reasons for that as well as the reality that rates vary according to many factors, (not the least of which is location) would be interesting.

What influences a pianist to charge what they charge? There are several factors that come into play, such as:

1. The cost of living in a given area. Cities, towns, and rural areas vary in their cost of living. Places where basic costs such as food, accommodation, and transportation are more expensive will tend to drive up rates in comparison to areas with a more humble cost of living.
2. Level of education. If someone has terminal degrees in the collaborative piano field, they may end up charging more than someone that doesn't because of their qualifications on paper.
3. Job experience. If someone has a solid background in the field or knows all the rep, they have every right to charge higher fees because of the depth of their experience.
4. What others charge. For every area, there is an average fee range. You can charge on the high, low, or middle area of that range in order to both place yourself in the hierarchy and attract clients of a certain level of experience.
5. Supply versus demand. Where there is a scarcity of pianists, the average rate may tend to rise because of the demand. I notice this in Toronto every spring, when the overflow of the work from a massive number of musicians needing accompanists gets taken up by pianists who don't regularly play the scene, and often charge rates way higher than the regulars, who usually have lower and more disciplined rate schedules.
6. Working with students vs. working with professionals. It has been said that pianists that work with students charge less than those who work with professional musicians. I'm not so sure about that, since many students I know can tend to have even more disposable income than the slightly older professionals musicians, many of whom are juggling families and several jobs.
7. Institutional regulations. Some schools of music pay their accompanists a fixed rate, either through salary, scholarship, per hour or per recital. Some schools let the market dictate what the rates are, paid for by students. Others have been known to fix rates that students pay for the freelance accompanists. There are also several schools that have instituted the dreaded Undergraduate Accompanying Requirement, which mandates that undergraduate pianists have to do a certain number of accompanying hours, non-paid, in order to graduate (resulting in a large number of desultory pianists and the collapse of the local freelance accompanist market.)

My best advice to pianists regarding what to charge is to be fair and accountable, but not to sell yourself short.

As always, your comments are most welcome on this issue. In the coming weeks I'll be looking at different options for billing structure, taking into account common services such as rehearsals, lessons, coachings, auditions, recitals, and competitions.

Oscar Peterson - Simply The Best on CBC Concerts on Demand

On the way home from the RCM this afternoon, I managed to catch some of the Oscar Peterson Tribute Concert at Roy Thomson Hall on CBC Radio 1, including remembrances by Bob Rae, Stevie Wonder (whose words brought tears to my eyes), and Quincy Jones, who told some great anecdotes about musical life in the 1950's.

The entire concert should be up on CBC Concerts on Demand sometime this evening. This is absolutely required listening, and a moving tribute to the best jazz pianist EVAR.

Update: More coverage of the event:

Globe and Mail
Several articles in the Toronto Star
National Post
Associated Press
Reuters

Six Jazz Pianists Every Sunday @ The Diesel Playhouse

Dawna Wright sent me the following information about an upcoming Sunday jazz series at the Diesel Playhouse in Toronto:

Timely Manor Presents "Sunday Jazz Series"@ The Diesel Playhouse

Meet 6 accomplished Pianists 1 Sunday each month (Jan-April)

Host: Jaymz Bee

Start Time: Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 2:00pm
End Time: Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 6:00pm
Location: The Diesel Playhouse Street: 56 Blue Jays Way
City/Town: Toronto, ON
Contact Info Phone: 416.971.5656 Email: www.dieselplayhouse.com

Description

Jan 20th-

Brian Dickinson, Gene DiNovi, Thompson Egbo Egbo, Steve Koven, Joe Sealy, John Sherwood
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feb 17th-

Mark Eisenman, Bill King, Bernie Senesky, Gord Sheard, Ken Skinner, Nancy Walker
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mar 9th-

Norman Amadio, David Braid, Ron Davis, Tania Gill, Bill King, Marilyn Lerner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apr 13th-

(This event is also Jaymz Bee's Birthday Bash!)

Adrean Farrugia, Adam Makowicz, Waylen Miki, David Restivo, Robert Scott, Elizabeth Shepherd
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ticket price? $20

That's a pretty impressive lineup of Toronto's best jazz pianists. The Boston pianos for this series are being sponsored by Remenyi House of Music. Thanks to Dawna and best of luck for this great new series at the Diesel Playhouse.

View from the Lobby of the Royal Conservatory (under construction)

Introducing Collaborator's Annex

These days many classical music bloggers aren't limiting themselves to merely one project, but branching out into many different media at the same time. Jason Heath writes Doublebassblog.org and Arts Addict (in addition to his entertaining Twitter feed), Hugh Sung produces highly informative audio and video podcasts alongside his excellent blog (as well as having developed the concept of the Visual Recital), and Bob Shingleton writes On an Overgrown Path in addition to having his own program on Future Radio. Where do they find the time to do all these things?

Readers of the Collaborative Piano Blog will know that my interests go far beyond the confines of "the piano in ensemble...the piano in real life". I'm also interested in a wide variety of subjects, such as food, books, online productivity apps, über-cool start pages, weird stuff on the web, and the role of culture and the artist in society. I never intended the Collaborative Piano Blog to be an entirely personal blog, but an aggregator of useful resources both on- and off-site created by one if the field's most ardent practitioners. However, I've felt the need to create a more personal site that reflected more of the stuff that I'm into without going radically off-topic back here.

Therefore, I now present Collaborator's Annex, a Tumblr site that has a much wider scope than what you'll find here. The posts on Collaborator's Annex are in the micro-blogging tradition and won't be as polished or comprehensive as they are here in the Collaborative Piano Blog, but there will be potentially more of them, as I track videos, photos, and links that I find interesting, as well as a bit of meta-commentary on the posts found here. In case you aren't a web-surfer of the old school but prefer your content fragmented and aggregated, you can also subscribe to CA's RSS feed.

Steven Blier on The Future of American Popular Song

This is a video of a recent talk at The New School given by New York Festival of Song Artistic Director Steven Blier on "The Future of American Popular Song". The video runs for just over an hour, and special thanks to FORA.tv for making this program available in its entirety.

Overheard Recently

Parent: (fumbling with a page of questions to ask prospective piano teacher) So, how many years have you been teaching piano?
Piano Teacher: Honey, longer than you've been alive.

Puccini in Pyongyang

Canadian soprano Gina Oh will be traveling to North Korea next month in what looks like a rare opportunity to perform western music for the alien civilization closed society of North Korea.

Complete article in Globe and Mail

Candid Shot, with Young Mammoth (from Whitehorse last April)

Stephen Sondheim Coaches "Not Getting Married" from Company

Here is an interesting video of Stephen Sondheim from a masterclass at Guildhall (in the early 80's?) as he coaches, with varying degrees of response, the "Not Getting Married" trio from Company. BTW, anyone know who the hotshot pianist might be?



(Via Roger Bourland)

The Collaborative Piano Blog Nominated for the Canadian Blog Awards

I am pleased to announce that the Collaborative Piano Blog has been nominated for the 2007 Canadian Blog Awards in the category of Best Entertainment/Cultural Blog. Nominations close on January 12 11, after which there will be two rounds of voting. I'll be posting more information about the voting process in the coming days and yes, you can vote even if you don't live in Canada.

Marketing Your Professionalism

Those of you embarking upon or recently arrived upon the freelance collaborative piano scene might be interested in reading Mason Hipp's Building Credibility: 11 Ways to Show You're a Professional on Freelance Switch. Mason writes about ways to show that you are prepared for business, have an effective profile, present yourself adequately, but are also clear in setting boundaries. The article's last sentence, which very nicely encapsulates the CP freelance world:

The higher you can position yourself above the mess of inconsistency and unprofessionalism that is fairly common in the freelancing world, the better off you’ll be.

In other words, walk the walk. You would be shocked to hear how fast word travels about the abilities and reputation of a freelance musician, positive or not.

January 20 is Sample Class Day at the RCM Community School

If you're interested in taking lessons or classes at the RCM Community School in Toronto but aren't sure how to get started, you might be interested in attending Sample Class Day on January 20. In addition to a broad variety of free sample lessons that you can sign up for, there will also be free sample classes in Eurythmics, Ghanaian drumming, Music with your Baby, Singing from Scratch, Rock Band Jam, World Music Chorus, Preparatory Music, and Performance Without Fear.

For more information on Sample Class Day, visit the RCM site for a complete listing of everything offered on January 20. You'll also need to RSVP, which you do by sending an email to communityschool [at] rcmusic.ca with your name, contact info, and which classes or lessons you're interested in sampling. There will also be several Q&A sessions throughout the day, and I'll be around for most of the afternoon answering questions about courses in the voice program.

Tapestry's New Blog + The Making of a Sock Puppet Opera

Tapestry New Opera Works has just launched Inside the New Work Studio, a blog chronicling the activities of its studio company. The first postings chronicle the making of The Perfect Match, a five-minute opera by Krista Dalby and Anthony Young, written for......sock puppets! You can also view a slideshow of photos taken during the filming session with several stars of operatic sock puppetry in action. The Perfect Match will air as part of the Bravo!FACT series on Bravo!Canada, as well as during the run of Opera To Go 2008, whose tickets just went on sale at the Harbourfront Box Office.

Poll: How Much Do You Charge Per Hour for a Rehearsal or Coaching?

What to set your hourly rate at is one of the most important decisions a collaborative pianist can make. Do you want to price yourself lower in order to get more work or higher to brand yourself as being more exclusive? Here is a chance to list what your rate is and compare it that of the internationally diverse group to see where rates lie on average.

One important thing: since this blog's community is highly global, I have decided to list answers in US Dollars. That means you'll need to convert your hourly rate to US Dollars, which you can do with a simple Google search with the following terms:

x [name of own currency] in us currency

A word of caution for those interested in the authority of this poll: differences in rates between countries and cities often depend on strength of currencies and regional standards of living. One important variable to consider is the continuing weakness of the US Dollar over the past few months.

So vote away and ask your collaborative colleagues to do the same--this poll is open until the evening of Saturday the 12th.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Oscar Peterson - Simply the Best tribute January 12 in Roy Thomson Hall

A tribute concert for the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson will be held Saturday, January 12 at 4pm in Roy Thomson Hall, entitled Oscar Peterson - Simply the Best. Appearing on the program are soprano Measha Bruggergosman, former Ontario premiere Bob Rae, and Canadian Governor General Michaëlle Jean. The evening will be hosted by Valerie Pringle.

The concert will also be broadcast live on CBC Radio One starting at 4pm EST.

Press release from Canada News Wire
Notice in CBC.ca Arts

For Those Weary of Excessive Page Turns in Ensemble Finales

Kim Witman on the WTO blog has a great rehearsal hack for repetiteurs playing ensemble finales-- you know, the kind that have 16 moving vocal lines, the piano reduction at the very bottom, and only a few bars per page, resulting in a page turn every 4.3 seconds. See if you can figure out her shorthand for the Rossini L'Italiana in Algieri Act I finale, which gets rid of 28 page turns.

Creating a Musician's Resumé

Applying for positions at various institutions can be one of the most onerous tasks a musician faces. We spend all this time perfecting our craft and what a job application starts off with (before anyone will even want to listen to you) is how you look on paper. Many young classical musicians these days are quite mistaken in thinking that a good LinkedIn, MySpace, or Facebook profile will do the trick in presenting a professional look, forgetting that most administrators in positions of power still take stock in the time-honored vehicle of the resumé.

What makes the preparation process difficult as a classical musician is that resumé services and software haven't got the faintest clue as to how a college teaching, orchestral, or opera resumé differs from a standard one. Enter the 2005 edition of The Musician's Resume Handbook as compiled by Bob Borden and Kathy Ivy at the Eastman School of Music's Office of Careers and Professional Development, viewable via pdf file on the Eastman website. A properly prepared and appropriate resumé can:

...encourage potential employers to pay close attention to you when they do meet you or hear you perform. Remember, a résumé is your only representative when you are not present. Thus, it must be perfect – well-organized and highly polished. If the musical director and audition/selection committee of a symphony have to listen to many auditions in a brief period of time, you want your résumé to help make you stand out.

The MRH offers the definitive guide on how to create an industry standard classical music resumé, with chapters on getting started, brainstorming, formats, types, selling yourself, the finished product, and how to present it. There's even a chapter on action verbs, always a crucial vocabulary tool on how to effectively market what you've done developed. Especially useful at the end of the guide is the selection of real-life resumés of Eastman graduates.

What the guide doesn't tell you is that the process of preparing a resumé doesn't just take a couple of evenings, but a very long period of time to fine-tune everything you've compiled, and proofread it down to the last detail. I've probably spent at least 40 hours preparing mine to get it to an acceptable level (you can view a slightly out-of-date non-official version here).

My best advice? Create one as soon as possible during or after your terminal degree, save it as a Word document, and continue to add to it every time you do something in your field. That way, it will be ready to go at a moment's notice. Part of the reason I found employment teaching and performing so soon after I finished my DMA at Eastman back in 1994 was that I always had resumés ready to go on a moment's notice. In spite of all the advances in technology and the internet, very little has really changed--the resumé is still the way to go if you want to leverage your experience towards getting employment in the field.

Klassikal Musik: A Social Network for Classical Musicians

Looking around on Facebook the other day, I saw a link to Klassikal Musik, a new site currently in public beta that aims to become the social networking hub of the classical music world. Klassikal Musik's goal:

Connecting numerous professionals, students as well as fans. But we also plan to allow companies and institutions such as theatres and conservatories to register. This just the very beginning and there are many benefits to be reaped in the near future.

As a member on this site you can build a network, upload or listen to audio and video, create clubs, blogs and event listings, build a professional-looking profile page, and post on forums.

Looking at the members page, it looks like there is a steady stream of new people joining up, although mostly without their real names. One of the beauties of the MySpace and Facebook classical music communities is that you get to connect with other users without the cryptic userids commonly found in the forum scene. On the semi-anonymous forums, however (such as The New Forum for Classical Singers), you can engage in a level of gossip and cattiness that you could never get away with on Facebook, where your true identity is never in question. Klassikal Musik seems to be aiming to bring together the best features of both the forums and the social networks. Will they succeed in luring in the rank-and-file music students and professionals? Time will tell--stay tuned for the upcoming features about the growth of this engaging new community as they roll out new features in 2008.