Piano Section News

Dear Fellow Piano Teachers,

I urge all of you to start making your plans to attend our NCMTA Fall Conference in Wilmington, North Carolina. I am pleased to inform you that our conference artist is James Giles.  James grew up in High Point, North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before transferring to Oberlin College Conservatory.  While at Oberlin, he won the MTNA Young Artist competition in Piano.  James Giles is currently a piano professor at Northwestern University.  You will find more detailed information on our conference artist in this Journal.

The NCMTA 2011 Repertoire List is found in the Journal and on our NCMTA Website.

On behalf of the NCMTA membership, I extend our collective thanks and sincere gratitude to the members of this year's repertoire selection committee.  They were Kent Lyman, Kathleen Vockeroth, Sue Aceves and Anne Scoggin.  The committee also received valuable research assistance from Allen Herther of the Burrage Music Company, Raleigh. The challenge for the committee was to find the appropriate balance between the inclusion of well-known, frequently taught literature and lesser known, worthy repertoire that deserves more attention.  We are very pleased to present this year's list and hope you find many selections that fulfill the musical and pedagogical needs of your students.  May I draw your attention to the Senior B, III selection, Kapustin, Nikolai. Prelude in A, Op. 53 no. 7.  For information and a listing of Kapustin's works go to: http://www.nikolaikapustin.net/.

In the program notes of his 2008 Kapustin CD on the Naxos label, my colleague John Salmon says the following about Nikolai Kapustin: "This sounds like Rachmaninov reincarnated as Oscar Peterson. Kapustin has Medtner, Rachmaninov, and Scriabin in his veins.  But the jazz side is equally authentic."

This Fall's Piano Workshop Clinicians are Pianist Charles J. Hulin IV, a graduate of Peabody (B.M., D.M.A.) and Juilliard (M.M.) and current faculty member at Chowan University in Murfreesboro and Deborah Belcher, a graduate of Winthrop University, Indiana University, and Michigan State University, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Music at UNC Asheville.  Thanks to Tom Lohr, who has handled the arrangements for the workshops.  Additional information about this year's clinics are available in this Journal as well as on our NCMTA Website.

 May your summer provide you with a time for professional renewal and personal rejuvenation.  Congratulations on your contributions to the musical training of our youth and the musical fulfillment of our adult students.  May NCMTA always fulfill your professional need for continual learning.    "Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."  John Cotton Dana.

Paul Stewart, Piano Section Chair