2010 Adult Piano Camp (APC)
August 2 - 4, 2010
St. Vladimir's Cultural Centre
404 Meredith Road NE (Memorial Drive and Edmonton Trail)
Calgary, Alberta
9 am - 5 daily
See the registration form or the fee summary for fee information.
The Adult Piano Camp is an exciting three-day experience for adult pianists to explore the many facets of piano playing in a supportive, fun atmosphere that promotes a positive attitude towards practising and performing. Students are coached in prepared solo repertoire and new ensemble pieces. There are classes in musical style, interpretation, memorization, technique and performance anxiety.
Update July 30: For APC participants: Click on the following link to download the pdf of the Adult Piano Camp schedule: 2010 APC ScheduleSeminar 1: Dr. Faina Bryanskaya - The Adult Student–How Do They Learn? How are They to be Taught?
Dr. Bryanskaya will discuss the advantages of being an adult student. She will talk about adult expectation versus reality. She will present appropriate repertoire that will help to build technique and will discuss ways to analyze the musical text. Dr. Bryanskaya will provide an analysis of the most annoying problems faced by adult students (please, make a list!) and will suggest "quick fixes." She will also explain how to build healthy habits gradually. There will be tips for the returning student, for the beginner and for the "retired" student.
Seminar 2: Joseph Fridman - Understanding Music as a Language and the Technique of Expressive Playing in Different Styles
For every musician–especially for a student–it is difficult to underestimate the role of listening to music. Proper listening helps us to feel the differences in the mood, style and genre of a musical work, and it builds a musical “vocabulary.” However, music teachers often experience that the musical language, as understood by them, does not necessarily make any sense to their pupils. Could this partially be because music these days is becoming more and more of a background to everyday life?
Would the student’s efforts be much more effective if, besides strengthening fingers and correcting wrong notes and rhythms, they could understand the meaning of a musical work and could come up with their own interpretation? How can we use our instrument (or instruments) to do so–to bond all the elements of music into a live, beautiful and intelligent whole? This session will explore a wide range of methods, games, exercises and repertoire, to help us to make music on the piano.
Seminar 3: Dr. Faina Bryanskaya - Essential Elements of Natural Piano Technique
In this seminar, Dr. Bryanskaya will demonstrate natural piano technique as a tool for self-expression. She will discuss the importance of posture and breathing, style, improvisation, and pedal technique from the very beginning.
What helps, and what hinders, the progress of adult students?
Seminar 4: Joseph Fridman - Paradoxes of Efficient Practising
This session will address the joys and frustrations of learning a new piece, maintaining it “afresh” for a long time, and “tuning” our mind into different modes while practising. Preparation for performances will also be discussed.
Topics covered will include:
- Learn the piece precisely and quickly (Stumbles and hesitations…are good!)
- Quickly identify and solve technical problems (Make your hands play or let them find the way?)
- Sound illusions and technique (What is the connection?)
- Learn the music, not the text only (Hot Cross Buns and Beethoven’s Sonata)
- Manage your attention (To think or not to think?)
- Develop listening skills (Listen to the… silence?)
- Be your own teacher (Do not let responsibility…let you down! How many of YOU are practising?)
Dr. Faina Bryanskaya Piano Camp Clinician for 2010
Dr. Faina Bryanskaya will be the clinician for the piano camps in 2010. She will be assisted by Joseph Fridman, well-known instructor and CASS clinician.
Photo and biographical information courtesy of Longy School of Music
Dr. Bryanskaya is an internationally acclaimed pedagogue who has been called “Teacher of Teachers.” In the former Soviet Union, she was founder and methodological advisor of the Advanced Training for Teachers of Music Schools, Colleges, and Conservatories, as well as Professor of Piano Pedagogy at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory and faculty at Mussorgsky Music College. She has also presented pedagogy workshops and master classes as a guest lecturer at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, and served as a faculty member at their summer piano camps for piano teachers.
Dr. Bryanskaya teaches at the Longy School of Music located in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Longy School of Music is one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory.
Certification: M.A. with honors, Ph.D., St. Petersburg State Conservatory. Studied with Natan Perelman. Lectures, workshops, and master classes in Russia, Israel, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, and the U.S., including MTNA conventions. Solo/duo performance in Russia, at the Silesia International Music and Wellness Festival in Poland, at the Smith Center for the Arts at Providence College, and live on WGBH Boston radio and St. Petersburg TV, Russia.
Joseph Fridman
Joseph Fridman comes to us from Edmonton. He is an incredible musician who unreservedly loves, lives and breathes music. He has earned two master’s degrees, one as a pianist and one as an opera director. Both degrees are from the world-renowned St. Petersburg State Conservatory (Russia ). He is a concert pianist, teacher, vocal coach and accompanist. He taught at the Schools for Musically Gifted Children of St. Petersburg and Kiev and the Pskov Music College and performed with the St. Petersburg and Pskov Philharmonics.
Mr. Fridman served on the faculty of the Alberta College Conservatory of Music from 1991 till 2002 and taught in the Conservatory’s International Music Academy and the University of Alberta. Mr. Fridman is a director and teacher of the Alberta Music Academy. He lectures and gives masterclasses and workshops in Canada, Ukraine, Russia and the USA. He has taught in various summer schools: “Strings and Keys” (Bergen), Alberta College summer school (Edmonton) and now as a clinician with CASSA.
Mr. Fridman has adjudicated a number of festivals and competitions, including the prestigious Canadian Music Competition (2004). His piano students have received first class honors and medals in RCM Exams, first and second prizes in the Kiwanis Festival, Northern Alberta Concerto Competition and Fall Festival. Mr. Fridman performs in solo and chamber recitals and has been broadcast frequently on CBC Radio.
We wish to remind you that videotaping of CASSA productions and performances is not permitted. DVDs of performances are available through CASSA. Friends and relatives may take photographs, but to avoid distracting the performers, please do not use flash photography during the performance.
2010 Seminars to be announced
CASSA PIANO CAMP
Submitted By Alison Crabb
Fourteen enthusiastic adults gathered at St. Vladimir Cultural Centre in Calgary from August 3rd to 5th 2009 for the 2nd ANNUAL ADULT PIANO CAMP sponsored by CASSA. We still had the same great workshop sessions and master classes as before—but spread out over 3 days, which was a (slightly) more relaxed pace!As our chief clinician, Robin Harrison, pointed out, one of the best parts of the camp was being together with other adults who share this crazy passion of ours to play the piano! Robin's talks officially covered the subjects of technique to obtain a singing tone, memorization (the Giesking method), relaxation exercises for the pianist, and the piano music of Chopin. But it will come as no surprise to those who know Robin, that we received a lot more tidbits of information on a wide variety of topics, as well as numerous anecdotes about well-known pianists and teachers, all delivered with his dry sense of humour. Rachel Anderson also gave one session on the piano music of J.S. Bach, where we enjoyed a chance to discuss and contribute our own ideas as well.
We received master classes in groups of 3 or 4 from Robin and Rachel, as well as from Edwin Gnandt and Joseph Friedman. Each teacher was quite different, but I found all were inspiring and caused me to see different things in my pieces. Encouraging the other members of the group, listening to their feedback, and observing how their playing developed over the three days, was one of my favorite experiences of piano camp. Each camper had prepared one solo piece and also played an ensemble number—a duet, a two piano piece, or a work for piano and a string instrument. With only 14 campers, it was easy this year to find an acoustic piano in a closed room every time we had a moment to practise. We were also pampered with coffee and some lovely cake to help keep our energy level up!
The camp culminated on the third day with an afternoon "Musicale"—actually a marathon recital featuring all our solo and ensemble pieces! As we shared drinks and more great food after, I think many of us realized how close we had become in a few days. We would like to thank Linda Kundert-Stoll, Janice Dahlberg and all the CASSA board and volunteers for making this possible. I encourage more adults to come out next summer. You will be inspired and renewed in your love of playing the piano!
(Article courtesy of APTA)
Teacher Profiles
Edwin Gnandt, Piano Teacher
Canadian pianist EDWIN GNANDT enjoys a successful career with over five hundred appearances as soloist, accompanist, adjudicator and workshop clinician. He has been praised by the San Francisco Examiner for his "consistently alluring sound," by the Oakland Tribune for his "ear for phrasing," and by the Los Angeles Times for his "distinct refinement." Mr Gnandt's performances have taken him throughout Canada and the United States as well as to Russia and Scotland. Recent appearances include St Petersburg, Russia; Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Vancouver. Recently, he was invited as a visiting Professor of Music at Azuza Pacific University in Los Angeles, California, where he collaborated with Polish pianist Roza Yoder in pursuing his continued interest in Chopin.
Mr. Gnandt completed his bachelor of music degree at the University of Calgary and his master of music at the University of Washington under Randolph Hokanson. He also studied at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland under a Canada Council grant and did postgraduate studies with Adele Marcus at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He collaborates and records with many of Canada's finest musicians. Mr. Gnandt currently serves as a full-time faculty member at Ambrose University College, Calgary.
Recent Publications
"Edwin Gnandt is a pianist of sensitivity; he has about him that elusive but distinct refinement that a wine connoisseur or a horseman might refer to as breed. One gets the impression that at his worst, this pianist couldn't offend one's sensibilities, that a lapse of taste wouldn't figure in his musical makeup."
Benjamin Epstein, Los Angeles Times
"Gnandt seems to have an endless variety of tonal weight at his command. He possesses a French style of coloration - like a painting that features 15 shades of light blue and 20 shades of dark blue."
Heuwell Tircuit, San Francisco Chronicle
"He possesses a rare gift that few people have - he phrases from the heart."
Aldo Ciccolini
"He polished this outgoing concerto nicely with a fine finger technique and an ear for phrasing."
Charles Shere, Oakland Tribune
"Gnandt made a most consistently alluring sound - his most impressive showing came with a sweeping Romantic reading of the Chopin Ballade in F minor."
Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner
"The Liszt was performed with flowing strength and magnificent phrasing, passing from strikingly clear attacks to romantic liquid legato phrases."
Don Forsyth, Penticton Herald
Discography
Piano Music of Chopin and Liszt (2006) A Beethoven Portrait (2007)
Prof. Edwin Gnandt
Associate Professor of Music
Ambrose University College
email: egnandt@ambrose.edu
150 Ambrose Circle. S.W.
Calgary, AB T3H OL5
403.410.2000 Ext. 5903
Lana Henchell, Piano Teacher
Lana Henchell received her bachelor and master of music degrees from the University of Calgary, where she studied with Marilyn Engle under major scholarships. She has played in masterclasses for Janina Fialkowska, Sergei Babayan, Georgy Sebok, Nikolai Demidenko, John Perry, Marc Durand, Dang Thai Son, Jean-Paul Sevilla, and Stéphane Lemelin; and during the 2003 Esther Honens Competition, with Ursula Oppens.
Winner of the 1994 Calgary Kiwanis Music Festival Rose Bowl and a first-round competitor in the 2000 Esther Honens Competition, she has also received second prizes in the Shean Piano Competition (Edmonton, 1998), the International Stepping Stone of the CMC (Montréal, 1997), the Austrian-Canadian Society Mozart Competition (Calgary, 1996), the National Music Festival (Sackville, NB, 1996), the Stravinsky Awards International Piano Competition (Champaign-Urbana, IL, 1993), and took third prizes in the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto Piano Competition (1997) and the CIBC National Music Festival (Montréal, 1994).
Miss Henchell has played numerous recitals in the Calgary area as soloist and as accompanist, and has appeared with Calgary orchestras, performing concerti by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Grieg. She participated in the 2003 “Barbara Krakauer” Academy in Vaison-la-Romaine, France, through a major grant from the Alberta Foundation of the Arts. In January 2004, she performed in concerts for the University of Calgary’s New Music Festival, “Happening”.
As a result of winning First Prize at the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Piano Competition in May 2004, Miss Henchell travelled across Canada to perform a sixteen-concert tour. This included a performance of the Mozart C Major Piano Concerto, K.503, with the Montreal Chamber Orchestra. In 2005, Miss Henchell performed a solo recital at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa for the 2005 Alberta Scene Festival, which was broadcast on CBC Radio Two.
Miss Henchell has taught private piano and theory lessons, adjudicated festivals and accompanied both professional and student musicians in the Calgary area. Currently, she is working towards her D.M.A at McGill University under the tutelage of Richard Raymond.
Katrina Thompson, Assistant
Ms. Thompson is a piano instructor with the Chinook Studio of Music and also teaches from her studio in Woodbine, Calgary. She has completed a bachelor of music (with honours) from Memorial University (Newfoundland) with a major in theory and composition and a masters of music education from the University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK) with a major in piano pedagogy.
Ms. Thompson enjoys working with students of all ages and levels. She has taught piano lessons, music theory, keyboard harmony, master classes, Music for Young Children, undergraduate level music appreciation courses, and music for early childhood specialists. In addition to teaching, she has worked as an accompanist, an adjudicator, an arts administrator, a music research assistant, and as an interpreter at the Cantos Music Foundation. She is currently a member of the Alberta Piano Teachers Association (APTA), an executive member with the Alberta Registered Music Teachers Association (ARMTA Calgary), and an administrator with the Calgary Arts Summer School Association (CASSA). Her favourite hobbies include cooking, hiking and rock climbing.
Accommodations
This is a B&B that was recommended for campers attending CASSA.Hughes' House Bed & Breakfast Calgary
315, 11 Ave NE
Calgary, AB T2E 0Z2
1.403.804.4431
Speak with Kelly for CASSA special rates: $60 per night if you bring your own breakfast, or $85 per night with breakfast.
This restored historic home is within walking distance to downtown, and is 12 minutes from the airport. It is in a quiet neighborhood, and is close to St. Vladimir's Cultural Centre. The home is decorated with elegant antiques, including a grand piano (and two keyboards), and cast iron tubs. This was highly recommended by one of our board members.
Photo © Tuscany Productions Ltd. Used with permission.
