Piano Workshop and Academy offers learning for teachers and students, June 16-19;

evening concerts open to public

Event: Goshen College Piano Workshop and Academy
Dates: June 16-19, 2008
Location: Goshen College Music Center
Cost: Tuition is $250 for teachers, and $150 for students. Still accepting registrations; must include a $50 deposit. Additional charges for lodging, food and recreation.
Event sponsor: Goshen College Music Department
For more information:Call (574) 535-7361 or e-mail pianoworkshop@goshen.edu
Web site: www.goshen.edu/music/Piano_Workshop

GOSHEN, Ind. – One of the longest-running workshops for both piano teachers and students in the United States will happen again this summer. The Goshen College Piano Workshop and Academy, being held June 16-19 in the Goshen College Music Center, will feature favorite instructors from years past, as well as new faces.

An outreach of Goshen’s Music Department piano studio, for over 30 years the Piano Workshop and Academy has sought to inspire teachers and students each summer offering interactions with professional instructors in a supportive environment through lectures, recitals and master classes. This intensive four-day musical event includes nightly public concerts.

Teachers participating in the workshop will benefit from experts speaking on topics such as piano pedagogy, performance and literature. Students enrolled in the academy participate in small group lessons with artist faculty, have individual practice time and attend other sessions concerning a variety of topics geared toward the development of student pianists. In the evenings, teachers and student meet together for student recitals, master classes and concerts. This intensive four-day musical extravaganza concludes with a concert devoted to newly learned piano duets and two piano pieces presented by the academy pianists, as well as a premier of a new work commissioned for this event by a guest composer.

Lecturers for this year’s workshop include Doug Bomberger, chair of the fine arts department at Elizabethtown College; Catherine Rollin, a well-known teaching composer whose new piano duet, titled “Fiesta for Two” will premiere at the final evening concert; Jessica Johnson, a professor of piano pedagogy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Mark Swartzentruber, a London-based pianist; Matthew Hill, associate professor of music at Goshen College; and Beverly Lapp, associate professor of music at Goshen College.

For more information and to register, call (574) 535-7361, e-mail pianoworkshop@goshen.eduor visit www.goshen.edu/music/Piano_Workshop. Tuition costs $250 for teachers, and $150 for students. Registrations are still being accepted and they must include a $50 deposit. There are separate fees for part-time registration, room and board on campus and use of the Recreation-Fitness Center.

Schedule of evening concerts:

Sunday, June 15, 7:30 p.m. in Rieth Recital Hall

Piano Workshop Recital: Solomia Soroka, violin and Matthew Hill, piano

Free and open to the public

Monday, June 16, 7:30 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall

Selected Piano Workshop students, ages 13-18, will perform

Free and open to the public

Tuesday, June 17, 7:30 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall

Piano Workshop Recital: Sole Nero, piano/percussion duo

Cost: $7 adults, $5 seniors/students, GC students free with ID

Wednesday, June 18, 7:30 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall

Piano Workshop Recital: Mark Swartzentruber, solo piano

Cost: $7 adults, $5 seniors/students, GC students free with ID

Thursday, June 19, 7:30 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall

Piano Workshop Recital: Student ensemble recital and premiere of a new duet by Catherine Rollin

Free and open to the public

Biographies of the guest clinicians:

Jessica Johnson serves on the piano faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as director of graduate studies in piano pedagogy. In 2006, she was the recipient of UW’s prestigious Emil Steiger Distinguished Teaching Award. In addition to her love for the standard keyboard repertoire, Johnson frequently commissions and programs contemporary solo and chamber works. An active clinician, she has given workshops and presentations at the European Piano Teachers Association International Conference, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, five featured presentations at MTNA national conferences, as well as held residencies at major universities and colleges throughout the United States, and in Canada, Europe and China. Johnson has articles published in American Music Teacher, Keyboard Companion, Piano Pedagogy Forum, EPTA’s Piano Journal and Piano Adventures Teacher Newsletter. In 2007, she was the recipient of American Music Teacher’s Article of the Year Award. She received a doctorate of musical arts degree in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Michigan.

Catherine Rollin is a pianist, composer, clinician and teacher of prize-winning students. Rollin’s pedagogical compositions are recognized worldwide for their combination of musicality and “teachability.” In demand as a clinician and master class presenter, Rollin has given over 150 workshops, including a 2006 seven-city tour of Japan that featured the technical insights of her Pathways to Artistry series, as well as a wide variety of her solo and duet collections. In the summer of 2007, Rollin was featured at the Music Teachers Association of California as well as the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in Chicago. Among the honors of Rollin’s students are a national finalist in the 2004 MTNA junior high piano performance competition, International Institute for Young Keyboard Artists semi-finalist and Oberlin Piano Competition second round semi-finalist.

E. Douglas Bomberger is professor of music and chair of fine and performing arts at Elizabethtown College. He holds a doctorate in historical musicology from the University of Maryland-College Park, a master’s of music degree in piano performance from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in music and French from Goshen College. He has also taught at the University of Hawaii, Ithaca College and Goshen College. Bomberger’s articles have appeared in American Music Teacher, The Piano Quarterly, Clavier, Keyboard Companion, The Journal of the American Liszt Society and other journals.

Matthew Hill, associate professor of music at Goshen College, teaches piano, music history and humanities. In 2006 Hill presented a series of master classes and a recital performance at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu, China, as well as guest lectures at the Southwest University of Science and Technology in Mianyang. Hill is co-chair of the college’s Music Department and co-coordinator of the Piano Workshop and Academy. Hill has a doctorate in piano performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under pianist Howard Karp, and has also studied with the renowned Beethoven interpreter Claude Frank.

Beverly Lapp, associate professor of music at Goshen College, teaches applied piano and piano pedagogy and humanities. She serves on the Committee on Internships and Practica for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP), and moderated the pre-conference seminar on collegiate pedagogy teaching at the NCKP in Chicago in 2003. She holds degrees from Goshen College and Westminster Choir College of Rider University and is working toward her doctoral degree from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Sole Nero, a piano and percussion duo featuring Jessica Johnson and Anthony Di Sanza, is committed to exploring and programming new and existing works for piano and percussion duo. In an effort to contribute to the repertoire of this diverse medium, Sole Nero is engaged in an extensive commissioning project resulting, thus far, in six new works composed expressly for the duo. Sole Nero has performed extensively in the United States and recently appeared in Shenyang and Beijing, China. In 2004, the duo released its first compact disc recording Music per Due on the Equilibrium label.

Mark Swartzentruber has released albums with Sony Classical and Solo Records to critical acclaim in journals such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, The Guardian and International Record Review. His London appearances include solo recitals at the South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall and St John’s, Smith Square. He has broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and Classic FM and is consultant producer for BBC Radio 3’s Sunday mid-morning program. He is music director of the Holloway Arts Festival and has worked with directors such as Franco Zeffirelli and Richard Eyre performing soundtracks for London West End shows. A pupil of the late John Ogdon, Michel Block and Maria Curcio, Artur Schnabel’s protégé, he is a committed teacher and is regularly invited to give master classes and to adjudicate.

History of the program:

The seed for a Goshen College piano workshop was planted in the beginnings of the Goshen College Piano Preparatory Department in the late 1960s. In 1966, associate professor of piano Kathryn Sherer joined forces with John O’Brien who was then teaching in a private studio in Elkhart, Ind. Together they set up group lesson activities along with private lessons for 10 young students who were enrolled in the budding program. By 1973, there were five teachers registered for a three and a half week pedagogy course and 37 teachers for the five-day workshop. Most of these came from neighboring states, but some came from as far away as Virginia, Montana and Ontario, Canada. In addition to the teachers, there were 14 students enrolled for the summer. Special guests and clinicians for that year’s workshop were Carol Rosenberger, Frances Clark and Louise Goss.

As word of the program spread, there was interest from teachers in outlying areas to come with their students during the summer to learn from the Goshen experience. In the first few years this was done by informal arrangement, but by the summer of 1970, Kathryn Sherer recognized this event as an ongoing annual “piano workshop.”

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

###

Goshen College, established in 1894, is a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.