Hear from leading experts in workshops . . .

Each registrant will have the opportunity to attend up to four of eight workshops presented by leading experts. You may indicate your preference for workshops on the registration form.

Thursday, August 4

Review of New Piano Publications - Barbara Fast and Yu-Jane Yang
This workshop features presentations of the most recently published piano music prepared by two leading experts in the field of pedagogical materials. If you are looking for "hot off the press" music, this workshop is for you. Publishers' catalogs will be available to workshop attendees.

Barbara Fast, Associate Professor of Piano Pedagogy, coordinates the group piano program and teaches graduate and undergraduate piano pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma. She frequently presents workshops on new materials, historical keyboard pedagogy, and technology.

Yu-Jane Yang is Professor of Piano/Piano Pedagogy and Director of the Piano Preparatory Program at Weber State University in Utah. Dr. Yang was listed in Who's Who Among America's Teachers in 1996 and 2002. She served as president of UMTA and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation.

Baroque Style: Practical Advice from Performers of Historical Instruments - LeAnn House
In this workshop, LeAnn House, harpsichord, assisted by Shelley Gruskin, recorder and musette, and Mary Springfels, viola da gamba, will demonstrate and discuss practical considerations of articulation, ornamentation, dynamics, and aesthetics that transform the approach to Baroque music on any instrument.

LeAnn House holds degrees in both performance and musicology from Kansas State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches piano, harpsichord, music theory, and piano pedagogy at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, and is currently Music Director of the Minnesota Ballet.

Special Needs Students and Piano Teaching - Scott Price
Talent and desire do not recognize boundaries created by disabilities. This workshop will focus on how to provide quality of life experiences at the piano for students with multiple disabilities including autism, blindness, and developmental delay. Video clips of young people will be used to demonstrate teaching techniques and interpersonal communication.

Scott Price is Associate Professor of Piano, Piano Pedagogy, and Coordinator of Group Piano at the University of South Carolina School of Music. He is creator and editor-in-chief of the on-line journal Piano Pedagogy Forum, and has presented at national conventions of MTNA, MENC, and NCKP. He has specialized in working with autistic and disabled children for six years.

Innovations in Piano Pedagogy: Contributions of Selected American Women - Committee on Historical Perspectives, Connie Sturm, chair
Twentieth-century women played vital roles in advancing American piano performance and teaching. Their accomplishments as a group are not widely recognized. This workshop will chronicle some of their achievements.

Connie Arrau Sturm coordinates piano pedagogy programs at West Virginia University. The author/clinician of over seventy-five publications/presentations, she continues to conduct historical research on the contributions of American women to the field of piano pedagogy.

Friday, August 5

Doing What Comes Naturally: Nature's Clues to Interpretation - Marvin Blickenstaff
Our interpretation of music is guided primarily by the composer's markings in the score. This workshop examines the unnotated role that the natural world around us--gravity, inertia, breath, heartbeat--plays in formulating meaningful interpretation.

Marvin Blickenstaff teaches at the New School for Music Study (Princeton) and at The College of New Jersey (Ewing). Active as a recitalist and lecturer, he serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy.

The Recreational Pianist - Brenda Dillon
This workshop will focus on the adult pianist who moved from wishing to doing. A timely topic, as the percentage of people over 50 is expected to increase 74% over the next 16 years.

Brenda Dillon, Project Director for the National Piano Foundation, also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy. A former associate editor of Keyboard Companion, she is also editor of NPF's newsletter Piano Notes.

Piano Need Not Be Lonely - Nadia Lasserson
 This workshop will serve as a practical guide to the wealth of chamber music repertoire with easier piano parts, making it fun for young pianists to play with friends, and introducing them to the wonders of the world of ensemble playing.

Nadia Lasserson, organizing secretary of the European Piano Teachers' Association, is head of Keyboard and Chamber Music at JAGS Girls' School in London and also teaches at Trinity College and the Royal Colleges of Music. She is the founder of "Piano 40," UK's only piano quartet, which has premiered 27 works composed especially for the group.

Bottling Experience: Rules of Pianists' Thumbs - Robert Mayerovitch
Experienced teachers rely on a library of workable strategies. Refining them into short, pithy maxims arms teachers and students with immediate responses to challenges of technique, interpretation, memory, rhythm, and performance well-being.

Robert Mayerovitch, co-author of A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers, professor and pianist for The Elysian Trio at Baldwin-Wallace College, lectures frequently and humorously on the musical relationships of mind and body.