I’ve been working in Germany over the weekend, tutoring a bilingual piano workshop near Düsseldorf, so I thought it appropriate to highlight a master class today.
Gelsenkirchen is a city in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany, and I’ve been visiting a couple of times a year since 2014, providing free piano classes to those who would not normally have such an opportunity. I love this concept and am very grateful to Kery Felske (director of IKM Gelsenkirchen) and our sponsors for their unwavering support, enabling the possibility to continue this important work.
The class always consists of a variety of levels and abilities (and age ranges!), from complete beginners to advanced players (probably to a standard comparable to UK diploma level), and this weekend focused on those who hadn’t played much before, although there was one intermediate to advanced level pianist. Classes are held in English, and for the younger participants this can seem somewhat daunting, but it hasn’t proved problematic as yet.
The value of an ‘open piano lesson’, which is ultimately what a master class or workshop is, cannot be underestimated; it presents a chance to observe a variety of musical and technical issues. Solving such challenges can be of benefit to everyone and therein lies its beauty. Hopefully, those who attended our two-day event found it useful, and will be encouraged to further develop their playing.
The following master class was given by leading American pianist Garrick Ohlsson and features Chopin’s Etude in A minor (‘Winter Wind’) Op. 25 No. 11 played by Netanel Grinshtein and recorded at The Jerusalem Music Centre last year.
As always, there’s much to enjoy in this class and I hope you find it of interest:
from Melanie Spanswick http://ift.tt/2g9ipeb
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