Exciting musical happenings! And random stuff.
Come hear Brahms’s Gypsy-inspired set of fiery Hungarian Dances! Maira and Janelle Phinney’s Appassionata Piano Duo performs in Presser Recital Hall at the University of Mount Union on April 24 at 7:30 pm. Please come and bring friends for this evening of emotional, accessible music!
All our students earned a Ribbon at March Ribbon Festival! We are also proud to announce that John will represent the studio at the Stark County Music Teachers’ Honors recital on May 12. And we congratulate Elle and Dannie for receiving nothing but Superior markings on their solo and concerto pieces at this year’s Federation of Music Clubs Festival!
Join us for an “Under the Sea” themed recital on May 4 at 4 pm. It will be held jointly with the studio of Janelle Phinney and will take place at St. John’s Anglican Church on Fulton Dr. We’ll enjoy some Classical pieces and then some ocean-inspired ones. And plan to mingle during refreshments afterwards!
I’m thrilled to announce that all of our Keys to Artistry students who entered Scales Olympics this November won Gold Medals in their categories! Congratulations to Betsy, Julianne, John, and Aaron for their top notch work! Each student earned a perfect score on each skill in the six different events they entered: repertoire performance, transposition, sight-reading, scales, arpeggios, and chords.
Keep up the terrific work!
The University of Mount Union Faculty Artist Showcase will take place on Sept. 30 at 7:30 pm, in the university’s Presser Hall. Various faculty will perform on their instruments. I’ll play a couple movements from Bach’s Partita in B-flat Major, and my piano duo with Janelle Phinney (Appassionata Piano Duo) will perform some of Brahms’s timelessly appealing Hungarian Dances.
Come out and hear some great music from the Mount Union faculty!
We are beyond thrilled to offer the Keys to Artistry Piano Camp June 19-23, 2018, for pianists ages 8 to 18. Please see more details and the Piano Camp Application (due May 31) at our Recitals, Lessons, Classes and Events page, about half-way down, under the heading Classes and Events.
Please join us at the University of Mount Union, Presser Recital Hall, on Saturday, April 7 at 7:30 pm for a solo recital including the Bach B-flat Partita, an Enescu Pavane and the Liszt B-Minor sonata.
I will also play the program at Cedarville University on April 12 at 7:30. Hope to see you there!
...you must learn your scales and your arpeggios!"
Why? Because passages like this are EVERYWHERE in piano literature. An excerpt from Saint-Saens's Second Piano Concerto, which I'll play with the Alliance Symphony on Oct. 22, in Brush Hall at Mount Union: (sneak peak at first movement in Faculty Recital on Sept. 10 at Mount Union, 7:30 pm)
Or this...
Or this...
Actually, a more accurate title should be "Who Cares about Schumann?" You know, Robert Schumann, the pianist who injured his hand trying to be an amazing virtuoso, the one who fell in love with his piano teacher's daughter, the one who struggled with mental illness, the one who produced amazing music in spite of (or perhaps because of) it all...
Nineteenth-century composer Robert Schuman is perhaps the quintessential Romantic composer. He had a wife, Clara, who loved him, championed his piano music, and, by the way, happened to be one of the most formidable concert pianists of the century (as a woman!). Robert and Clara had eight children after they married after her father’s consent. They lived long ago (1800s) in a land far away (Germany). How does all that matter today?
Why should we care? Robert Schumann was mentally ill. We live during a time when mental illness is better diagnosed, treated, and understood than ever before. But so much more needs to be done. In today’s US society, roughly 20% of adults live with mental illness. Among US college students, the percentage is even higher. Many more cases are unreported, sometimes not recognized by the students themselves, or anyone else in their life. And the lingering stigma associated with mental illness and psychiatric treatment still prevents many from seeking the help they could benefit from.
Robert Schumann exhibited strong symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder, and seemed to associate himself with multiple personalities, possibly of dissociative identity disorder. The latter, particularly, is exceedingly difficult to diagnose accurately even today, taking an average of seven years in the healthcare system before correct diagnosis is achieved. (Read more about Dissociative Identity Disorder here.)
In such circumstances, Schumann’s life was tinged with many of the aspects that fascinated Romantic composers and authors. The Romantics were fascinated with the inexplicable aspects of our world; Schumann’s struggle with mental illness was certainly little understood in his time. Romantics yearned for larger-than-life experiences, which could well reflect Schumann’s manic episodes. They also looked for extremely intimate forms of expression, favoring small character pieces for piano solo, or for voice and piano, two genres that comprise some of Robert Schumann’s most treasured music. Schumann was also a gifted writer, and wrote as a music critic for years, in a time when literature and music were especially closely intertwined.
Interestingly, both Schumann’s articles and his compositions often portrayed his own fascination with multiple personalities, As a child, he grew up surrounded by literature and was particularly drawn to characters with alter egos. As an adult, he identified with various personalities, each with its distinct character traits, behavior, and even distinct name. Eusebius was the dreamer—reflective, introspective, relatively serene. Florestan was a reckless revolutionary, all impetuousness and brash emotion. The third most-encountered character was Master Raro, the wise old man. As a music critic, Schumann discussed pieces not in first person, but as a conversation between the characters mentioned above. These characters also appear frequently in Schumann’s pieces. Eusebius and Florestan sometimes title compositions that describe their personality strikingly well (hear the mildly wandering music of Eusebius and the impulsiveness of Florestan from his set Carnaval). Sometimes even absolute pieces—those with generic titles such as Sonata—were touched by these characters’ spirit: we find Schumann placing a small F or E in the score of certain movements of his compositions, subtly associating them with Florestan or Eusebius. More detailed information about Schumann’s life and music, along with fine recordings of some of his best works, can be found on NPR.
Schumann struggled with depression in his youth. In adulthood, episodes of mental instability were sometimes so strong that he couldn’t function. It was up to Clara’s concertizing to earn most of the family’s income. As Schumann became more and more ill, he began to fear for his family’s safety and beg Clara to have him committed to a mental institution.
In der Nacht is a program piece musically describing a lover who has to swim across turbulent waters to secretly meet his love. The middle section is a brief sweet relief from the torment, as the lovers meet in a moment of bliss. The piece ends stormily, suggesting a tragic end… It can also be a striking portrayal of Schumann’s own struggle between lucidity and madness.
A striking and moving story about Schumann’s very last composition, The Ghost Variations, is found here.
Our list of reasons why many do not listen to Classical music is below. How do Robert Schumann and his music fit in?
“I don’t like it.” I’d be surprised…Schumann was not too far removed from Mozart, who only a few decades earlier said that music is no longer music if it is not pleasing to the ear. Much of Schumann’s music hides (or perhaps embodies) turmoil, pain, fear, anxiety, elation, and love in music that is still accessible. The other consideration: Is art’s foremost purpose to be pleasing? Mozart thought so. Do you?
“I can’t understand it.” If we’re talking about mental illness, neither does anyone else, really. Not fully, anyway. But in every darkness lies light: Schumann produced music that still touches our heart today, and many of us can still…
“It doesn’t relate to me.” …many of us can still relate to his struggle.
“It doesn’t relate to real life.” As much as a third of the US population would vouch otherwise.
“It puts me to sleep.” Eusebius might. But Florestan will physically shake you out of your seat.
“It’s elitist.” Let’s look at Schumann’s own lens: He wanted to be a pianist, but hurt his hand and could no longer perform. He loved, struggled to be able to achieve marriage to his love, and finally did. As his family grew larger and seemingly happier, his mental state deteriorated so he could hardly function at times. He lived, worked, loved, cared for family, struggled to support them, and fought illness. Sounds like the elements of many people’s lives. Not just people of the “elite.”
“It’s boring.” I’d try to refute this statement here, but if you read half the stuff above about Schumann, I’d be shocked if you still think it boring. Maybe you need some extra spicy Indian food to jolt you out of your apathy. Apathy is dangerous. Not caring is dangerous. Care about something! Then take positive action.
I believe there is always a silver lining to any cloud.
“But this paper is worth 70% of my grade!”
“My dad is going to be furious if I don’t make the team!”
“She’s already going out with that other dude! I bet he’s funnier, sexier, more interesting, and they’re laughing about me right now!”
“I can’t be everything to everyone all the time! I am always failing at something: I can’t be a good enough daughter, and sister, and friend, and students, mentor, athlete, youth group leader, niece, aunt, waitress, and student council president all the time! I’m letting EVERYONE down!”
“No one cares. Why should I even bother getting out of bed? For another day of the same stuff? So many band director can yell at me? So my math prof can give me another failing grade? So my mom can remind me again that I haven’t called my little sister in a month? So coach can bench me again? It’s not worth it…”
“I must do it again!! Double-check it!! I might have missed something!! If I did, someone else will get hurt! That might mean I’m a terrible person!! Do it again!! I’m not sure that was good enough. Again! Again! AGAIN!!”
Schumann’s silver lining was the love of his family and his beautiful partnership with music. If any of the statements above sound familiar to you, you might just be a little stressed. Weekend rest may fix it. But if these kinds of thoughts start to take up significant time in your life, detracting from your normal day, consider this: for depression and anxiety disorders, we are now pretty sure that we can’t just “tough it out” and change such feelings on our own, but that it’s a chemical unbalance in the brain that prevents us from feeling well. In short, mental disorders are often caused by a physical problem: like a diabetic’s body struggling to deal with blood sugar or an elderly person’s deteriorating hearing. It’s not the diabetic’s fault that sugar isn’t processed correctly or the elderly person’s fault that his hearing isn’t sharp. Diabetics can receive medical treatment, hearing aids are quite useful to sharpen one’s hearing, and so too, the medical profession and counseling can treat mental struggles, whether short-term or more deeply-ingrained. That’s our silver lining regarding mental illness today: while some mental disorders are some of the most distressing illnesses we could encounter, many are HIGHLY treatable.
And of course, music can always be our silver lining. Just listen to Chopin’s Berceuse. Pure peaceful beauty.
Check out our new ME OMTA site and details about the upcoming conference in October! This is a must-attend event for everyone who loves deeply-felt, no-holding-back performances!
I wrote a blog post on the Mount Union site a while back, arguing in defense of Classical music, and its applicability to modern life. Wanna see?
Keep reading, then…
Some years ago, I presented a session to some prospective students. I was trying to explain why my field (Classical Music) is still relevant. Why it still matters. Why it’s not just for the elitist minds. Why it does apply to real life. Who still cares about Classical music? So I entitled my session “Who Cares about Beethoven?”
It turns out, the students and high school teachers in the room loved it. One of the points I made was about the deep interconnection between art forms. I played a couple of pieces by Astor Piazzolla with my duo-piano partner, Janelle Phinney. Piazzolla, who died in the 90s, was an Argentine composer who was musically educated by one of the most influential composition teachers of the twentieth century, Nadia Boulanger. His blood pulsing with the spice of the Argentine tango, the music of his homeland, Piazzolla fused tango with his classical training and his deep love for jazz to create compositions that transcend boundaries and appeal in a universal way. His music is Classically structured. It’s also free and sensuous, like the flitting dance movements of the Argentine tango and the unfettered tradition of jazz. And it marries two art forms that are inextricably linked: music and dance.
Let’s look at some widespread reasons many people in American society avoid Classical music.
”I don’t like it.”
”I can’t understand it.”
”It doesn’t relate to me.”
”It doesn’t relate to real life.”
”It puts me to sleep.”
”It’s elitist.”
”It’s boring.”
Relate that list to Piazzolla’s music, programmed with increasing frequency on “Classical” music concerts, like my own.
“I don’t like it.” Really? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjUqnr59UM .
”I can’t understand it.” Are you sure? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fWpfP9dwWo
“It doesn’t relate to me.” Love? Relationships? Lust? Attraction? Beautiful movement/art? If you have never encountered any of that, you probably live in Elsa’s ice castle basement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0INlumRpL8
“It doesn’t relate to real life.” Hm…I met my husband at a ballroom dance studio. Let’s just say being able to dance is quite attractive.
”It puts me to sleep.” Sweet dreams you must be having with this music on your mind… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ha2ZM0L0g
“It’s elitist.” The tango stems from its roots in the brothels of Argentina. Doesn’t seem high-class to me.
“It boring.” Try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdhTodxH7Gw
Perhaps you’ll come “be bored” with me at a Classical music performance soon. Ok, so maybe you don’t yet care about Beethoven. How about Piazzolla?
I've just returned Sunday from the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. I've attended this event before, and I'm always thrilled with the offerings and the quality of the sessions and recitals. I am eager to employ some new ideas I've learned into my teaching this coming year. My piano majors at Mount Union will have a fun time with my first conference take-away during their first studio class--watch out for it on August 22nd:)
