Courses Offered

Applied Piano I offers entry-level instruction in piano technique, practice habits, organizational skills, keyboard theory, sight-reading, and performance. Students are expected to develop a personal discipline, including maintenance of a regular practice schedule. Prerequisite: audition

Applied Piano II reinforces and continues the development of technical skills, keyboard theory, sight-reading, and recital performance. Basic analysis of musical form and style will be introduced and practically applied. Prerequisite: Piano I

Applied Piano III and IV offer expansion, refinement, and practical application of previously acquired skills, with emphasis on the study and performance of piano literature of all major historical periods. Opportunities for accompanying and orchestra participation will be available based on teacher recommendation. Prerequisite: Piano I and II

In all levels, students will pursue a study of keyboard history and literature, including a diverse array of styles and genres that is especially inclusive of composers, styles, topics and genres that have been historically marginalized in Western Art music study. This academic portion of the curriculum will prepare students for college level humanities courses, augment their allied classwork (e.g. AP History, humanities, et al.) while developing essential skills in critical thinking and digital literacy.

Most musicians and music educators agree there is no better way to develop a student’s music skills and enthusiasm than in a small chamber ensemble. With only one on a part, students must develop confidence and independent playing skills. The responsibilities and rewards of performances are theirs, along with the opportunity to display their individual personalities out from under the teacher’s baton. For pianists the benefits are flipped: rather than being completely independent and free, the pianist must cooperate with the other musicians in the ensemble and learn to listen, count, and collaboratively adapt to the group in ways that are not as overt in solo performance.

Personal involvement in making music is the basis of musical literacy. Those who perform develop an abiding interest in the arts and hold the key to the understanding of the aesthetic qualities of all the arts. The rehearsal process itself can serve as a valuable model of productive interaction and collaboration toward a goal no one person can attain. Students in chamber groups owe it to each other to be well prepared and thoroughly committed.

Chamber music is even more important to students with professional aspirations in music. They must begin to develop their ear and their responsiveness, as they can do only by performing in carefully balanced chamber groups.

Each member of a chamber ensemble learns to listen more carefully to each part played, learns to be a better interpreter of music, learns to give and accept constructive criticism from peers, and listens for balance, intonation, dynamics, and tone quality more critically. Chamber ensemble performance helps students to become critical thinkers and develop creative skills in a more accelerated manner. Students also receive the added benefit of discovering a more encompassing range of repertoire from a historical point of view which expands their knowledge of performance practice techniques from the Renaissance to the 21st Century. Pianists will have the chance to play harpsichord and organ, especially in historically informed performances of Baroque chamber music.

This 10-week course is intended to introduce students to contemporary art music composition, while students pursue the goal of writing a piece of music, in any style, for any instrument or ensemble. Our time will be spent exploring composing strategies and techniques for the creation of new works, as well as discussing exciting pieces of contemporary music and living composers. Topics may include:

• The craft of composition and the constituent musical parameters used in composition (harmony, melody, rhythm, dynamics, transformation, musical rhetoric, tension, expectation, and climax, extended technique, electronics, acoustic phenomena, theatrical elements, non-traditional instruments, etc.)

• Performance practice

• Notation and non-traditional notation

• Strategies for analysis

• Compositional genres (minimalism/post-minimalism, avant-garde experimentalism, spectralism, theater works, vocal music, improvisation, post-modernism, etc.)

• New Music Ensembles

• Rehearsal logistics

• Collaboration and networking

• Contemporary music resources.

Course goals

• To produce an original composition, with collective and individual help from instructors, and to have it performed at an end-of-the-semester concert

• To gain skills, techniques, tools, and strategies in the craft of composition.

• Gain a better understanding of the culture surrounding new music