It’s been two years since I last heard Mitsuko Uchida dish up a serving of mellifluous Mozart that she tenders phrase by phrase, with nuances of pure poetry. https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2022/03/28/mitsuko-uchida-and-mozart/ 3/24/2024 Performance at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California The pianist’s runs, so well-shaped, curvaceous, and keenly melodic, afford a model for students of the piano, teachers, and listeners alike. In a concerto framing, she invites her audience to sample a panoply of characters whose colorful voices interact with the ensemble she coaxes from the piano. The only c ..read more

Piano Study and the value of SINGING against a cultural backdrop of vocal inhibition ..read more

In 2019, I attended a San Francisco Jewish Community Center event that featured author, Jamie Bernstein showcasing her book, Famous Father Girl. The eldest daughter of conductor/composer icon, Leonard Bernstein, she had released her memoir in step with her father’s Centennial Celebration that drew a reinvigorated interest in the conductor/composer’s life.  The book event: https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2019/05/06/famous-father-girl-author-jamie-bernstein-delights-a-crowd-of-lenny-lovers/ With a glimpse back at Jamie’s engaging book talk, I recalled her sneak peek revelation that a movie about ..read more

Today I was immersed in the cosmos of pedaling and phrasing in the good company of an Online student. It was a natural follow-up to a pedal centered video produced by Tone Base, a cyber generated platform that engages fine pianists to contribute ideas in the technical/musical realm. What I thought was missing in the Tone Base production, was a focus on the relationship of pedaling and touch sensitivity. How non-harmonic tones, for instance, that might clash through a Classically framed slow movement within a scale passage, can be softened to accommodate a satisfying, non-blurred pedaling. (Th ..read more

Taking the lead from Seymour Bernstein, who sent out a mega-mailing to his List-Serve members about pianist, Orli Shaham, I dashed off to an embedded link of superlative Mozart playing. The reading was permeated by an ever present singing tone, nuanced articulations, and a broad breadth of emotional expression. ( As you scroll down to the you tube segment, observe Shaham’s relaxed arms, supple wrists, and her direct delivery of uninterrupted energy in the service of the music.) Technique is seamlessly woven into lyrical phrasing! Regardless of passagework rendered in slow or fast tempi, it’s a ..read more

As I revisited J.S. Bach’s memorable Sarabande movement from his French Suite No. 5, BWV 816, I stared at an Urtext score laden with ornaments of infinite variety –trills, mordents, parentheses showing upper and lower accents, loops on trills in opposite directions, etc. and to complicate matters, I was expected, by tradition, to improvise each section, adding more ornaments and original turns of phrases. What a challenge! This time around, after having studied all Six French French Suites, and a large portion of the Little Preludes, I had a revelation that fleshing out a melody, undecorated ..read more

Since I began teaching piano Online in 2011, well before it gained pandemic driven popularity, I’d always felt the need to fill in what seemed to be distance related gaps in the Internet teaching environment. Compensating for my guilt-ridden, tradition-breaking, cyber teaching excursions on Face Time, I’d made sure to give my students an extra serving of video transmitted suggestions between lessons. It was compensation for my corporeal absence that might leave my students hungering for an over your shoulder mentor with a prying pencil to scribble fingering and dynamic reminders—Or as some kin ..read more

Back in 2011, when music lessons by webcam were viewed as out of the mainstream, bucking the traditional face-to-face, in-person learning environment, I was nevertheless, lulled into cyberspace by an Australian subscriber to my You Tube channel. One day, he messaged me with a promise to send a Logitech webcam that would widen my teaching experience beyond the confines of a dual piano, walled-in music room. My first Online lesson with the Sydney, Australian was on shaky ground due to my unfamiliarity with all the intricate steps needed to smooth out a lesson transition with satisfying audio/vid ..read more

During my many years of teaching piano, nurturing students along of diverse backgrounds and levels, I never imagined that I would find myself channeling music into a form of local activism. But it’s happened here in Berkeley, California on Hopkins Street, with its lovely stretch of trees and quaint shops owned my merchants of many cultures whose employees are a rainbow of minorities. Upper Hopkins (the Eastern portion of the “Hopkins Corridor”) is lined with the Monterey Fish Market, The Bottle Shop, Gioia’s Pizza, The Hopkins Bakery, Asaka Sushi and Bar, Raxakoul Coffee & Cheese, Magnani ..read more

My personal arm weight journey began at age 13, when I enrolled at the NYC High School of Performing Arts. The preceding summer, I’d been a music camper at Merrywood in Lenox, Massachusetts where I’d met student cellist, Douglas Freundlich who regaled his aunt Lillian as an exceptional, Manhattan-based piano teacher. Such a name drop, well timed amidst Bach Brandenburg 5 rehearsals, inspired a musical life-changing event. In a deep well of frustration, partnered with a mentor at the time, who omitted a basic approach to singing tone production and whole arm relaxation techniques, I needed to b ..read more