20-09-2012

In August I went as an observer to the International Piano Summer School at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester. It was a fantastic experience and I learned a huge amount Read more...

I watched no fewer than fifteen top-rank teachers in different workshops and individual lessons, and I'm still processing the notes I made at the time.  There were three events every evening (faculty members giving lectures and recitals), and I went to all of them in the three days I was there.  Highlights included Joanna Macgregor playing "inside the piano"; Martino Tirimo playing lots of wrong notes of great beauty and persuasiveness (among a great majority of right notes, I hasten to add); the adult amateur workshop; the wonderful teaching of Megumi Masaki and Elena Nalimova.  And I heard and saw Grieg played by Norway's leading concert pianist Einar Steen Nokleberg, Russian music from his grandmother's personal collection played by Vladimir Tropp, and an extraordinary two-piano duet introduced and played by the composer Michael Maxwell Steer; and did I mention the Mazurkas explained by Eugen Indjic?