Call For Singers: Atelier S Singer's Winter Retreat in Querétaro, Mexico

Stuart Graham, artistic director of Atelier S, has recently expanded the company's operations to encompass projects both in Toronto and in Mexico. This winter, Atelier S will be offering 7 and 14 night packages to the Singer's Winter Retreat in Querétaro, Mexico from November to April. Packages include 5 90-minute lessons per week, as well as accomodation, breakfast, and additional trips. This might be a a useful option for singers wanting to make a quick getaway as well as work on repertoire and technique in some depth during the season. Check out the Atelier S website for more information, or you can contact Stuart Graham at atelier dot s [at] sympatico dot ca.

More about Atelier S from its website:

Atеlίεя S, since 2002 has been the private studio and opera workshop of Canadian baritone Stuart Graham. From its humble beginnings we are now pleased to off the singing community a fully structured performance program specialized for the transitioning artist who is working to bridge from the student career to the lyric profession. This new program includes a weekly lesson, bi-weekly performance/master class series, ensemble performance (opera and concert/oratorio repertoire), solo or shared recital and preferred status in performance classes featuring guest master teachers.

With the birth of Atelier S’ Summer Vocal Academy in Santiago de Querétaro, México, many opportunities opened and have taken root, thus, the permanent move of Atelier S and Stuart Graham to México. Together with the Facultad de Bellas Artes of the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro as well as the Embassy of Canada in Mexico City, Atelier S is working towards the education and promotion of worthy Canadian talent in the very important Latin market.

OMEACoach: Not Just for Ohioans

Cincinnati-based pianist Alex Thio has just created a very useful extended website entitled OMEACoach, which those in Ohio looking for a pianist might find useful. As a collaborative pianist, Alex is targeting the many events sponsored by the Ohio Music Education Association. His blog already has some interesting information, including a fantastic post about accompanist fees. I particularly like his explanation of just what a client "buys" from a professional pianist: security and confidence. Best of luck for Alex and OMEACoach and be sure to check out his site for regular updates.

Back From the Briefs

The run of Opera Briefs ended this afternoon, after three shows in three days at the Ernest Balmer Studio and an additional free performance this afternoon at Word on the Street. Thanks to everyone that attended the four performances and stay tuned for the next round of stuff. NB: I also had a small chorus role in Spy Dénommé-Welch and Jack Perla's The Bluffs--acting is so awesome. On deck for October: two concert dates with Opera Atelier, playing for Rosh Hashanah, Kol Nidrei, and Yom Kippur services at Toronto's Temple Sinai with cantor Lori Salzman, then back to a regular teaching schedule for the rest of the month. But first, an evening off and early to bed...

Vote for Darren Fung in Canada's Hockey Anthem Challenge

Here's a composer entered in Canada's Hockey Challenge whom I'm very glad to mention: Darren Fung, whose work I have had the pleasure of performing several times with Tapestry New Opera Works--at the LibLab, Opera Briefs, Opera To Go, and at the 2005 Aeroplan Convention. Here is his submission, Warriors of the Ice:


The voting for Canada's Hockey Anthem Challenge starts Oct. 4...

See also: Jonathan Deveau's submission

Anti-quote of the Day

Every so often you see a humdinger of a quote that goes against everything you work so hard to achieve. This zinger is from the wikiHow article on How to Accompany a Performer. Warning: reading the entire article might make you blow a gasket...

Don't try and play everything. Chances are the audience won't be paying attention to you, if you're a good accompanist. You're not the soloist, so the attention isn't on you. Feel free to reduce the music if necessary.

Video of Irwin Gage Coaching Lucia Popp

Here's an excerpt from Der Begleiter, a film by Ottokar Runze that features the legendary American pianist Irwin Gage. In this video, he reads through and coaches Richard Strauss' Wiegenlied with Lucia Popp--the entire 45-minute film can be found on this page at Download-Films.

New York University Announces M.M. in Collaborative Piano

The Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development has just started a Master of Music program in Collaborative Piano that will be accepting students starting in the 09-10 academic year. Under the auspices of NYU Steinhardt Piano Studies, the collaborative piano degree will be offered as a concentration within the M.M. in Music Performance and Composition.

Marilyn Nonken, Director of Piano Studies, sends along the following information about the program and its faculty:

This new degree concentration is very close to my heart! and our Artist Faculty specializing in Collaborative Piano include Anne-Marie McDermott (Artist, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center) and Grant Wenaus (pianist and coach, Glimmerglass Opera), as well as myself (with expertise in new music, Ensemble 21, Elision, and the Group for Contemporary Music) ...Due to the special nature of our program, students have the opportunity to work with both vocalists and instrumentalists, but can choose to focus in their area of choice, such as musical theatre direction, or classical instrumental performance.

You can contact Dr. Nonken at marilyn dot nonken [at] nyu dot edu for more information about applications and auditions. Best of luck to everyone involved with this exciting new program.

See the full list of degree programs in collaborative piano here.

Quote of the Day

Things learned at yard sale: it's better to lose $$ off price of yr piano & see it go to a poor family w a baby girl who loves music.

--Xeni Jardin on Twitter

Ebook on Talks with Master Pianists

Here's a great find on Scribd--a Project Gutenberg eBook of Harriette Brower's 1915 book Piano Mastery: Talks with Master Pianists, featuring interviews with some of the greatest pianists of the early 20th century such as Ignace Paderewski, Tobias Mattay, Ferruccio Busoni, Wilhelm Bachaus, and Hans von Buelow. Lots of great stuff in there--the entire book is embedded below.

Piano MasteryTalks with Master Pianists and Teachers by Brower, Harriette, 1869-1928 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Piano Pedagogy in Action at MSU

A very interesting new blog just popped up on my radar earlier today--Derek Polischuk, who teaches Piano Pedagogy at Michigan State University in East Lansing, has just started a blog in which he chronicles his teaching methods and progress of his class. Recent posts have dealt with note recognition and hand position/finger independence using YouTube videos as a tool for demonstrating the teaching methods of Derek and his students. Here is Master of Music candidate Justine Sasanfar teaching a beginner piano class:



You can read more about MSU's Master of Music program in Piano Pedagogy here.

Canwest Cabaret Festival Runs at the Distillery Oct. 2-5

One of the most fascinating confluences of musical styles is the cabaret repertoire, with its cultural mashup of both popular and classical genres. From Oct 2 to 5 you can see 50 cabaret performances at the Canwest Cabaret Festival at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto's Distillery District. Some of the artists include Patricia O'Callaghan, Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies (who is no stranger to the classical genre with his performances with the Art of Time Ensemble this spring), Maryem Tollar, and others. The Songbook Series looks fascinating, with a large cast of performers appearing in the Kurt Weill, Leonard Cohen, Duke Ellington, and Breithaupt Brothers songbooks. You can also check out a printable .pdf file of the festival's full concert listings.

Male and Female House Numbers

Those looking to expand their musical theatre repertoire may want to check out Jeremy Fisher's lists of 60 house numbers for both male and female singer/actors.. For those who aren't sure what a musical theatre house number is, here's a quick explanation from Jeremy:

You’re a Musicals singer looking for a song that can reach out to an audience, one that you can play to them directly. You’re looking for a “House number”...a song that crosses the invisible fourth wall between the actor and the audience, the wall that exists in the character’s mind (after all, in most plays and musicals the characters don’t know they’re being watched by a group of people).

Jeremy's M and F lists have selections of true house numbers, as well as audience numbers and sililoquies. Both lists have excellent song choices both for revues and audition selections.

60 Male House Numbers from Musicals
60 Female House Numbers from Musicals

A Music Education Degree + Collaborative Piano--Is it Viable?

Laura recently asked a fascinating question in the comments my article Is There Value in an Undergraduate Collaborative Piano Degree?:

I'm interested in both teaching classroom music and collaborative piano. I don't really want to major in performance (I'm a second-year music major at a community college and will be transfering in two years). Would a music education degree, with piano as primary instrument, be of much value to a collaborative pianist? Thanks.

My feeling is that a Music Education degree generally won't hinder one's ability to continue in a collaborative piano degree at the post-graduate level, as long as you keep up a high level of playing and keep on acquiring more playing experiences in both the vocal and instrumental fields.  

Being able to teach at the K-12 level is not a bad career outcome, and often enables one to get higher pay, benefits, and professional development opportunities than teaching at the collegiate level (unfortunate, but all too true these days).  Having a music education degree can give you a head-start on the pedagogy end of the collaborative piano field, especially if you have a love of classroom teaching.  Ideally, combining collaborative piano with K-12 music education is best achieved in school districts that have either a serious music curriculum or a dedicated arts school.  In fact, I often am brought in to do master classes at a school in north Toronto that actually has a high-school-level voice/piano class for art song, musical theatre, and opera projects(!).

Does anyone have any experience with or opinions about music education degrees within the framework of a career in collaborative piano? If so, it would be great to hear your comments.

Tapestry's Opera Briefs Opens September 26

This week and next I'm in rehearsals for Tapestry New Opera Works' Opera Briefs, an annual compilation of highlights from the Composer/Librettist Laboratory. This is your first chance of the season to see some of the new work produced in the Tapestry studio, including 10 short scenes by composers Scott Brubacher, Justine Chen, Jack Perla, and Teresa Connors, with librettos by Spy Dénommé-Welch, David Brock, Ken Gass, and Andrew Moodie. Jennifer Tung and I are co-musical directors for a cast featuring soprano Carla Huhtanen, mezzo soprano Lauren Phillips countertenor Scott Belluz, tenor Keith Klassen, and baritone Justin Welch. The production is directed by Tom Diamond and runs at the Ernest Balmer Studio in the Distillery September 26 and 27 at 8pm, with a final performance on the 28th at 3pm.  

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and $10 for students and arts workers. The Facebook event listing has been circulated, so you'll need to buy your tickets soon before the event sells out. You can either call (416) 537-6066 or visit TOtix in order to grab your seats. Hope to see you there!

Recreating a 17th Century Harpsichord

Keyboard instruments weren't always as tough as the ones built these days. In fact, playing an authentic but fragile 17th-century instrument can sometimes be downright harmful. The solution: sample their sound so it can be recreated electronically, as Dr. Kenny McAlpine achieved through multiple sampling of each string:

"The interesting thing about the harpsichord is that there are characteristic idiosyncrasies of the instrument," he says. "Things like the sound of the keys as you strike them, the sound of the jacks and the plectra as they make contact with the strings - these are all things that tell you that you're listening to a real, analogue, organic instrument.

"And these are very often the things which are missing from digital copies of instruments."

On top of collecting all the sounds of the instrument, Dr McAlpine had to record each note several times.

You can compare the sound of the original versus that of the copy on the September 15 episode of BBC's Click On (Real Player required for playback).

Toronto Arts Council and Luminato to Launch Incubate Today

According to today's Globe and Mail, the Toronto Arts Council and Luminato have just come to an agreement to begin a one-year pilot project called Incubate to foster new musical work, with an emphasis on risk-taking and innovation. An excerpt from James Bradshaw's article:

The two sides have committed to a one-year pilot with $100,000 in funding: $50,000 from Luminato, $25,000 from the TAC and another $25,000 to be raised by the TAC Foundation. Though this year's money will go exclusively to Toronto artists working in the broad category of musical arts - chosen as the test genre because the TAC considers it one of its strengths - both parties hope to expand to other areas, including dance and theatre, or possibly to cycle through them annually.

Kudos to both the TAC and Luminato for negotiating this venture, especially coming as it does at a potentially difficult time for arts groups in Canada if the Conservatives win a majority and decide to cut arts funding.

The official announcement is scheduled for this morning at the Gladstone Hotel.

Maria Callas Sings Voi Lo Sapete w/Piano

By the 1970's Maria Callas had retired from the opera stage but still performed a fair number of recital engagements. Here she is singing "Voi lo sapete" from Massenet's Cavelleria Rusticana in a 1974 Japanese recital, which, according to the performance listings in Divina, took place either in Hiroshima, Sapporo, or Osaka. According to the same listings, her pianist is either I. Newton or R. Sutherland. Hive Call: is anyone able to ascertain the identity of the pianist in this clip? Please leave a comment if you know.

Faceless for the Arts in Canada

For those of you that haven't heard yet, there's a federal election coming up here in Canada on October 14. As in many European countries (and quite unlike the United States), government arts funding is an important revenue source for many arts organizations and individuals. A new Facebook group (with already close to 11,000 members) has just been created to build awareness for arts issues in the coming election by encouraging concerned citizens to leave their Facebook pictures blank. From the Faceless home page:

This is a roll call to all people who believe that Arts and Culture is a part of their lives and is important outside of the political spectrum. This is for artists, families, parents, friends, co-workers, relatives, enemies, neighbors, acquaintances, to all people who enjoy the arts and culture of this country and feel that it must be nurtured and cultivated. We need to send out a message to our politicians to let them know that there are more of us than they think and congruently that we are not going to vote for any person or party that plans to cut funding to arts and culture during this election. This is for all of us; people from all sides of the political landscape. This is not about what party you belong to, but how you feel about arts and culture in this country.

I feel very strongly about this issue, so I'll be one of those leaving their profile pictures blank until election day.

Lest you think I'm nuts, the Conference Board of Canada released a report last month stating that in 2007 cultural industries accounted for $84.6 billion of economic activity, or 7.4% of Canada's gross domestic product, as well as employing over 1.1 million people. This is a very important sector of the Canadian economy.

It's About Standing Out

Kavit Haria, in a followup to his recent ebook How to Design a Winning and Profitable Music Business, has released a video entitled Non-Conformity in the Independent Music Business, embedded below.  One of the things that Kavit emphasizes is that his models aren't specific to any genre of music, but apply to all of them in today's market.

If you want to learn more about these concepts, Kavit is accepting 100 applicants into a Musicians Mastermind online course that starts today.

RCM Photos on Flickr

At the Royal Conservatory Open House this afternoon, I couldn't help but notice the large numbers of photographers, amateur and professional, taking pictures of the new building from all sorts of angles.  At least one of the numerous photographers on hand has already uploaded a substantial set of photos to Flickr--the picture at left by T. Kim K. is merely one from a set of nearly 40 photos. I'll link to more photosets as I discover them.

Update:  Lú_  has two pictures from the open house.

RCM Open House This Sunday Afternoon

Tomorrow afternoon from 12:30 to 4:30pm, the Royal Conservatory will be offering its first Open House of the year and showcasing the newly opened Telus Centre for Performance and Learning. You'll be able to find me in the main lobby for most of the afternoon at the Conservatory School voice department table.  Anyone interested in voice lessons, coachings, classes, or programs can take sample lessons with voice faculty that will be on hand for the afternoon, including In-Sook Chung, William Perry, Robert Loewen, Helga Tucker, Joel Katz, George Brough, and myself.  

Hope to see you there!

The RCM site has a complete listing of the afternoon's events, and there is also a Facebook event listing for the open house.  Here is a map of the RCM's location on Google Maps:


View Larger Map

In case you're looking for free parking in the neighborhood, you can generally find some in the Annex two blocks north of Bloor on Lowther and points north.

Update: Thanks to everyone that came out to the open house, which attracted a huge number of people this afternoon.  And a special thank you to all the CPB readers who took the time to introduce themselves--it's always great to meet you in person.  

The Last of the Silent Movie Pianists

City of Memory has an astonishing audio documentary about Abe Lass, born in 1907 and at his death 93 years later was the last living pianist to have played the silent movie houses in the early days of the cinema. The 1997 WYNC documentary listed on the City of Memory page has some fascinating insight from Abe about the art of situation-cued piano improvisation, which at once time was the staple of cinema pianists, but is now a completely mostly lost art.

See also:

• The Sound of Silents: a wonderful article on the art of silent film accompanying from AmericanHeritage.com
• Abe Lass also recorded a CD of silent movie music samples on Smithsonian Global Sound
• Abe Lass' New York Times obituary

Update: A big thanks for a comment by Donald Sosin, who still keeps the art of cinematic pianism alive. Be sure to check out Donald's website for silent film events, resources, and music.

Sa Chen Plays Sebastian Currier's Scarlatti Cadences and Brainstorm

The 2005 Van Cliburn Competition was a piano competition with a twist. From an August 2005 NewMusicBox article by Joseph Dalton:

...the composers were competitors as well, but in a different contest: the Cliburn's second American Composers Invitational. The composers' works were sent to all the competitors who had to select one for performance in the semifinal round—should they be lucky and skilled enough to get that far. The composer performed by the most semifinalists would be the winner.

The winner of the $5,000 prize was Sebastian Currier, whose Scarlatti Cadences and Brainstorm was played by more semi-finalists than any other pianist. Here is Sa Chen (who eventually won the $20,000 Crystal Award) performing it in the preliminary round in this stunningly filmed video:

Impromptu Opera Performance Spotted in Vancouver's West End

Igossy recently spotted this performance by tenor Colin Ainsworth and soprano Rachel Cleland-Ainsworth in Vancouver's West End. Colin and Rachel were across the street, so the sound doesn't carry perfectly well in this video. You can also see more shots of the same performance here, here, and here.

Winning at the Music Biz in 2008

I can't tell you how many times in the last month I've had a conversation with people along the lines of just how different the feel of the music world is this fall. CBC Radio 2 has eliminated most of their classical music, fewer and fewer people are buying CDs, federal government support for the arts in Canada is waning, opera companies no longer hold auditions the way they used to, the US economy continues to be weak, film production in Toronto is stalled--the list goes on and on. It's getting more and more difficult to get a feel for creating a path to success in today's arts climate.

But fret no longer. Music Business Consultant Kavit Haria has just created a valuable tool for successfully leveraging today's arts climate in How To Design A Winning And Productive Music Business, a free ebook available from Inner Rhythm. After leaving your name and email, you can either view the book online or download it.

The sections of Kavit's ebook are on subjects such as leadership, dreaming, strategy, business plans, marketing, and non-conformity. The following quote is from the section entitled "Marketing Today Is About Creating Tribes":

People join tribes for different reasons. For driving, Volkswagen, Ferrari, Ford or any other. For reading, Amazon. For music downloads, iTunes. For computing, Dell or Microsoft. For personal computing, Apple. For sports, Nike. For independent artists, CD Baby.

These brands create tribes. Following. Dedicated ambassadors.

To understand the art of creating tribes, we must first understand what a brand is.

A brand is not a logo. A brand is not your music. A brand is not an identity (your band name, your artist name, etc)

A brand is what one feels about you. It is not what a company, market or media designs you to be.

In other words, it is not what you say it is. It is what they say it is.

Creating tribes is all about building trust. People buy into what they trust. It is about a person’s gut feeling and this is what your true brand is. An independent musician’s brand is not developed by flowery artwork, sales pitches and logos. It is developed by good music, good conversation and good engagement.

What are your thoughts on Kavit's ebook in relation to the classical music field?

Xenia Pestova Plays Silvio Ferraz

This eloquent performance features Russian-Canadian pianist Xenia Pestova playing Cortazar, ou quarto com caixa vazia by Silvio Ferraz for piano and live electronics.

Dilettante Music's Blank Canvas Webcast

A few months ago, I wrote about the classical music social networking startup Dilettante Music. In the ensuing months, they've been both expanding their user base and releasing new and interesting multimedia content for both members and visitors. Below is a recent webcast of their July 9 Blank Canvas event at 93 Feet East in London. The featured musicians on the webcast:

• Pianist Will Dutta playing the first movement of Debussy's Pour le piano (starting at ~3:32 on the video)
• The Elysian Quartet playing Sean O'Hagan's The Ballad of Erpington Steel (starting at ~8:21)

For those who haven't heard of Dilettante Music yet, it's a sort of classical-music-themed Facebook, where you can post a profile, write blog posts, friend other users, post photos, join groups, add event listings, and upload music. Right now Dilettante is mostly UK-centered, but that will probably change as the site grows and matures over the coming season.

ME100 Hits 80

Joseph's Pisano's project to assemble 100 Music Education bloggers by the end of 2008 has hit another milestone, with 80 bloggers having signed on to the project (I'm #53). Here are the latest Music Education blogs to be added to the list:

Andrew Spang's Music Technology for Educators
John Ensminger's Pedaplus
Richard McCready's Tech Toys and Tunes
Derek's Down Press Up

If you blog about Music Education, just leave your blog's contact info on the ME100 main page in order to be added to the list. Only 20 spots are left...

Clarinet and Piano Version of Fauré's Les Berceaux

Les Berceaux, like many of Gabriel Fauré's early songs, also works very well as an instrumental transcription. Here is an arrangement for clarinet and piano, with clarinetist Cristo Barrios and pianist Clinton Cormany at London's Wigmore Hall in November 2006.

The Most Famous Survivor of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Reading biographical accounts of the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso, I'm struck by one man's fortuitous career move to embrace a technology (the phonograph record) that changed forever the way we engage with music. It's also fascinating to read about an America just beginning to embrace the allure of high culture on a much larger commercial scale than it ever had before.

But what few people know about Caruso is that he was a survivor of one of the greatest natural disasters of the twentieth century: the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906. Caruso had just finished performing the role of Don Jose in a Metropolitan Opera touring production of Carmen in San Francisco's Tivoli Opera House. That night in the Palace Hotel, he was awoken by his bed rocking. The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco has a transcript of his interview with The Theatre, in which he gives a first-person account of his harrowing escape from the hotel and journey through the ruined city. An excerpt:

Then I make my way to Union Square, where I see some of my friends, and one of them tells me he has lost everything except his voice, but he is thankful that he has still got that. And they tell me to come to a house that is still standing; but I say houses are not safe, nothing is safe but the open square, and I prefer to remain in a place where there is no fear of being buried by falling buildings. So I lie down in the square for a little rest, while my valet goes and looks after the luggage, and soon I begin to see the flames and all the city seems to be on fire. All the day I wander about, and I tell my valet we must try and get away, but the soldiers will not let us pass. We can find no vehicle to find our luggage, and this night we are forced to sleep on the hard ground in the open. My limbs ache yet from so rough a bed.

Caruso was lucky to get out of the Palace Hotel alive, as this picture shows. He never returned to San Francisco.

What would Caruso have sounded like on that fateful evening, hours before the disaster? tomfroekjaer (also see his website) has posted on YouTube a remastered recording of the Flower Song from Carmen ("La fleur que tu m'avais jetée") Caruso made for the Victor Talking Machine Company:

Stewart Wallace and Andrew Norman Join the Schott Roster of Composers

Congratulations to American composers Stewart Wallace and Andrew Norman, who have just signed onto the Schott Music roster. Schott VP of Composers and Repertoire Norman Ryan talked about these two composers and their contributions to American music in a recent press release:

Our recent signings mark a continuation of Schott's commitment to a fresh start in America recognizing great composing talent at various stages of development and designing flexible publishing relationships that encourage and emphasize creative partnerships. Launched in 2005 when Schott Music Corporation established an active music publishing operation in New York, this commitment to developing, promoting and supporting the very best composing talent is ongoing and we look forward to broadening these initiatives further. Stewart Wallace is a seasoned composer of great works for the lyric and concert stage and we are thrilled to welcome him to Schott at this momentous point in his career with the impending world premiere of The Bonesetter's Daughter at San Francisco Opera. Andrew Norman is an emerging artist who is fast becoming recognized as one of our great young American composers. We are excited to be working with him as he continues to develop his unique voice.

I've also embedded the latest issue of Schott Aktuell, with information on world premieres, new sheet music, and composers published by Schott Music:

Get your own - Open publication

(Thanks, James!)

The Beaux Arts Trio's Final Concert Is Available on Performance Today

On August 21 at Tanglewood, violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Antonio Meneses and pianist Menachem Pressler played their final concert as the Beaux Arts Trio. American Public Media's Performance Today has links to lots of media resources associated with the final concert, including a podcast of the final performance, a pdf file of the final concert, and Daniel Hope's audio blog of the concert tour.

Over the Beaux Arts' 53-year career, they have had several personnel changes, including the following string players:

Violin: Daniel Guilet, Isidore Cohen, Ida Kavafian, Yung Uck Kim, Daniel Hope
Cello: Bernard Greenhouse, Peter Wiley, Antonion Meneses

However, the group has always featured Menachem Pressler on piano, whose presence became the centerpiece of the trio.

Official Beaux Art Trio website
Wikipedia article on the Beaux Arts Trio
Beaux Arts Trio page on NPR Music
Menachem Pressler's official website

Here is an earlier incarnation of the Beaux Arts Trio playing the first movement of Schubert's Trio in B Flat D. 898:




(Thanks, Brad!)

The Psychic Pianist

A big thanks to Eve for leaving a wonderful comment on the How Do You Choose a Coach/Pianist? posting regarding those intangible qualities which are so important to the ensemble process. I particularly liked these lines:

And finally, someone who really listens! Someone who can sing and play at the same time, who can anticipate. I have worked with a pianist who knew before *I* even knew that I was about to forget the words of the next strophe, just because she felt my concentration change. Someone who breathes with you, who gives you space when you need it, who follows and supports you and who knows what your voice needs and lifts you in performance. (Obviously this process takes time and getting to know each other!) Someone who is actually interested in the text and who uses the piano to communicate just as much as letting you use the voice.

Well said, Eve.

The New CBC Online Radio Stations Are Live

After a bit of nosing around on the newly revamped CBC Radio 2 site, I finally found the new online classical stations, which launched yesterday with almost no fanfare.  Here are the two classical streams:

CBC Classical

CBC Canadian Composers

There are also two more non-classical radio streams:

CBC Jazz

CBC Canadian Songwriters

You can find all the new stations on the Radio 2 Channels page.  From what I've heard so far, the stations all offer deep and high-qality programming in their genres, with plenty of Canadian performers and works.  As to whether or not the new online stations will make up for CBC's near-gutting of classical content on their main Radio 2 service or become a bit easier to find on the CBC site so they can develop an audience, only time will tell...

The New Academic Year, Preceded by a Weekend of Mozart

Today was my first teaching day of the season here in my Oakville studio, with some assistance from my new MTH-powered teaching site on steroids that tracks income/expenses, scheduling, repertoire, practice time, provides studio updates and file downloads, as well as sends pre-lesson reminders and post-lesson notes.

Rather than have a relaxing end-of-summer weekend, I spent the last few days playing as a rehearsal pianist in a two-day workshop for Opera Atelier's upcoming production of Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. The purpose of the mini-workshop was for OA stage (and artistic) director Marshall Pynkoski to spend some quality time for some staging and movement work creating Amanda Pabyan's Kostanze-we spent most of the two days working in some detail on the three Kostanze arias--Ach ich liebte, Traurigkeit, and Marten aller Arten. This was the first time I've had the pleasure of working both with Amanda and in the Opera Atelier rehearsal process--I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the production in November. Word is that the tickets are selling quite rapidly--you may want to get your seats ahead of time before the Facebook-event-listing-fuelled ticket-buying frenzy begins.

End of Summer Link Extravaganza Part 3

Here is the third and final installment of recent articles and stuff from around the web that I've found both interesting and relevant:

• Need to wear jewellery that establishes that you are of the piano tribe? Jay Jackson Designs has an extensive line of earrings, pins, and other items made from recycled piano keys. (Via Keetsa and Piano Teacher's Retreat)
• Rehearsal pianists--are you in a situation where you are getting bullied? Slow Leadership has an article about Whose Job Is It To Stop Bullies at Work. What I've also noticed recently is that several pianists are taking matters into their own hands and outing abusive colleagues and conductors on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Pianists Facebook group. The playing field is about to become a little bit more level out there....
• Want some quick practice advice? This photo may help you...
  
• Want to put your gigs online? Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies tells you how.
• Tired of doing someone else's projects? Steven Snell of Freelance Switch writes about 7 Reasons Why You Should Pursue Your Own Projects.
• Finally, Jennifer Cluff points us towards a monumental series of YouTube videos that feature Daniel Barenboim's Beethoven master classes in Chicago. Here's the first one in the series: