June 2008

GREE TINGS FROM THE PRE SIDENT

Dear Colleagues: I want to sincerely thank our chapter for contributing toward my attendance at the MTNA Convention in Denver, March 29-April 2. Denver is a fantastic city! This was my first time visiting Denver and I was so impressed. The hotel and Denver Convention Center, across the street from each other, were brand new and state of the art. From my hotel room looking west, I had an inspiring view of the majestic Rockies, still snowcapped. When I arrived at the hotel, I observed that most of the women I saw were wearing red blazers and black skirts. With my causal slacks and sweater, I wondered if I had missed the boat on the dress code! Upon closer inspection, I noticed the trademark black and pink tote bags - Mary Kaye! They were also having a convention here. In addition, the Convention Center was hosting the Denver Auto Show, a huge area attraction. That gives you an idea of how much activity this city can comfortably accommodate and still not feel crowded. The MTNA Convention offered MORE than enough to satisfy anyone's thirst for knowledge. There were several simultaneous multi-class tracks going on at once and you could stick with one or jump back and forth as you liked. I focused primarily on Building and Maintaining a Studio, Recreational Music Making. Other tracks included Music Technology and Collaborative Music Making. Interspersed with the tracks were master classes, exhibitors' showcases, performances and competitions. Whew! It's so neat to see in person those composers' names you see on your students' music: Robert Vandall, Melody Bober and the Fabers just to mention a few. I had a personal description of the new Alfred Premium Piano Course given to me by one of the writers, none other that Martha Mier. What a sweet woman she is! To a person, the composers and clinicians are down to earth and very approachable. I toted my trusty laptop to each session and typed notes from each session both for my personal files and also to share with you. Those notes are included in this electronic newsletter in PDF form for you to peruse. For those of you who have received a hard copy of this newsletter, contact me if you would like hard copies of the notes and I will print and mail them to you. If you have any comments or questions about the material in those notes, feel free to contact me. The legendary Marilyn Horne, opera singer and recitalist, was presented with a Distinguished Leadership Citation for her work in the Marilyn Horne Foundation, which sponsors gifted young singers in pursuing the genre of recital singing.

Lang Lang was the featured convention recitalist. The day of his recital, he taught a master class of advanced students. Two main points he stressed with each performer were to give each phrase shape and direction and to create color and contrast by executing different voices as instruments of an orchestra. His recital was nothing short of spectacular. I've never sat in such a spellbound audience. From the graceful playfulness of a Mozart Sonata to the bombastic velocity of not one, but TWO Liszt selections, he revealed a mastery of every aspect of technical facility with deeply held emotion. Denver is very pedestrian friendly. Within a 2 mile downtown radius are located the State Capitol, several art museums, a mile long shopping promenade, many upscale hotels, the Civic Center, the Public Library, sports stadiums, the Convention Center (which is HUGE) and the Performing Arts Center featuring quite a few theaters of various shapes and sizes. I was able to walk easily to a Colorado Symphony concert, which I greatly enjoyed. The eclectic mix of city architecture from Greek Revival to ultra contemporary is so interesting. Many buildings have mirrored sides reflecting the vibrant blue skies and billowing clouds that float by - stunning. If you haven't visited Denver, I encourage that you put it on your "short list" for must see U.S. cities. Most of you are familiar with the phrase, "jumping the shark". I'm not sure where it originated from, but it basically means a point in time where there is a major paradigm shift. I sense that music education is nearing a "jump the shark" point. By this, I mean that the realization has come of age that the future of music education lies with making the world of music making available to people of all ages, all abilities and all levels of motivation. A major focus, if not THE major focus of this year's convention was ENJOYMENT in the process of music learning, not the end result of excellence in performance, but just having FUN learning how to make music. You know the phrase from The Field of Dreams movie, "If we build it, they will come." To translate to music, "If we make it FUN, they will come." There are GENERATIONS of people who have always dreamed of playing the piano, but either had frustrating experiences with piano early on or felt intimidated by the traditional one on one teaching approach. We can open the world of music making to them with the process oriented, student led, stress free Recreational Music Making group approach. Keep alert to the phrase Recreational Music Making as you're going to hear it and read about it a LOT in the coming years. Scott Houston, "The Piano Guy" on PBS, strongly advocates that we should keep students interested by teaching music they want to play involving reading lead sheets and fake books as part of traditional piano instruction. He doesn't get hung up on the finer details initially, but claims that the cream will rise to the top and eventually students will want to improve their technique because they have hit a playing obstacle and want to overcome it. For some, these admonitions might seem as repellent as garlic is to a vampire and a "dumbing down" of our expectations, but what do we, as music educators, really want? Speaking for myself, I want as many people as possible to become musically literate and gain a love and appreciation of music to last their lifetime, pass on to their children and share with others. We are well on our way toward the planning of a wonderful 2008-2009 season of local chapter events. I want to thank Sue Kuntz for working on programs and master classes on our behalf. A printed calendar will be mailed to you in the summer and the calendar and current membership directory will soon be available online at our website, www.lvpmta.org. I have truly enjoyed my first year as your President and look forward to my second. All of you have been so helpful to me and have performed your individual positions of responsibility so capably. Thanks so much.

"The sense of musical delight, with the power of producing it, is a gift of the imagination." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge Sincerely, Randi Paul President, LVC-PMTA ******************************************************************** General Meeting Minutes To keep members current on chapter activities, minutes of all General Meetings will be emailed to members with e-mail addresses. If you do not have e-mail, but would like a hard copy of the General Meeting minutes sent to you, please contact Cherie Murray, Recording Secretary, and let her know. Her phone number is (610) 967-1067. ******************************************************************** Cherie Murray led an inspiring teachers forum at the February meeting. The topic was "Teaching Piano Technique to Beginners. Many teachers participated and shared ideas including hand position, when to begin scales, games, imagery, and experience with new method books. Our Lehigh Valley Chapter has such a wealth of talented teachers! Our periodic teacher forums are an invaluable way to share ideas that can be implemented in our studios to enrich teaching. Every teacher who attended took home new ideas to try in their own studios. ******************************************************************** NEW WEBSITE FEATURE On our website, we are offering the option for members to update their contact information and also for guests to sign up for email announcements of chapter events which are open to the general public. On the main page, look for the link that says: "Guests may now register their Email address or members may update their information. Just click here!" and you'll be sent to a page where you can fill in your current contact information. Please share this information with your students' families and your friends who are interested in our events, as they might want to register for email alerts. ******************************************************************** SCHOLARSHIPS The 2008 Frank Chesebro Scholarship Audition took place on May 17 in Foy Hall, Moravian College Music Department. Pianists Abigail LaVecchia, student of Barbara Thompson, and Ben Watson, student of Sue Kuntz, tied for first place and each received a $1250 prize. Third place winner is mezzo-soprano Holly Daubenspeck, student of Janice Derstine. Holly received a $500 prize. Abigail, soon to graduate from Penn Ridge High School will be attending Temple University as a piano performance major studying under Charles Abramovich. Ben, a June graduate of Parkland High School, plans to be a music education major at West Chester University. Holly, a senior at Northampton High School, will be studying music education at Susquehanna University.

IMPORTANT STUDENT EVENT DATES FOR 2008-2009 (Information for Teacher's Programs/Workshops and Master Classes is elsewhere in this newsletter.) October 4, 2008 Dorothy Sutton Festival-Moravian College November 7-9, 2008 PMTA State Convention-Mansfield College November 15-16, 2008 Achievement Award Auditions-Moravian College Feb. 28-March 1, 2009 Hannah Young Playathon-Palmer Park Mall Nov. 8 , Dec. 6, 2008/ Feb. 14, 2009 Student Recital (Nov./Feb. at Moravian, Dec. Site TBA) There will be a student bus trip to the Metropolitan Opera, but the date has not yet been determined. ******************************************************************** NEWS from the DERSTINE STUDIO Studio news: Three students from the Derstine studio were chosen for State Chorus this year. They are Ariella Brent, junior at Emmaus, Alyce Daubenspeck, junior at Northampton, and Alison Trautmann, senior at Emmaus High. Bryn Holdsworth, sophomore at Phillipsburg High School, has been chosen to attend a very prestigious Young Professionals three-week workshop in Florida this summer. The workshop is mostly attended by young Broadway professionals that wish to gain more skills in dance, acting and singing. Bryn is one of the few high school students to have been chosen and by Frank Wildhorn, nonetheless. He is the composer of "Scarlett Pimpernel" and " Jekyll and Hyde". Wildhorn singled her out to tell her what a beautiful voice she had. Bryn was thrilled! Some of you may remember former student and scholarship winner, Stephanie Woodling (Central Catholic). Stephanie has been singing opera in Germany for several years and will be marrying a German opera singer this summer in Neuss, Germany. Also, Daniel Wilkins, student of Janice Derstine (voice), Skip Wilkins (jazz improvisation) and former student of Irmgard Smits (piano), traveled in February to the Prince Claus Conservatory at the Groningen Institute in Gronginen, Holland. He and a group of three other students from the NJPAC Wachovia Jazz for Teens program were selected to study jazz for one week in Groningen. Daniel is enrolled in the NJPAC program on tenor saxophone, and spends his Saturdays in Newark studying and playing jazz. Daniel spent the last summer at the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts. ******************************************************************** 25-YEAR MEMBER AWARDS At the April 16 Annual Breakfast Meeting, the following members were awarded plaques in recognition of 25 years of service and leadership: Beatrice Allen, Jenny Collins, Janice Derstine, Diane Montouri, Randi Paul and Gloriana Sewell. Our chapter is deeply appreciative of all the contributions these long time members have made and hope they will continue to participate fully in the life of our organization. Congratulations!

OBSERVATIONS ON "MUZAK" By Irmgard Smits Not only in public places and stores etc. do we have background music but even in nature programs on PBS, in National Geographic programs such as the excellent 2-hour show about the human body, the TV show about Queen Elizabeth and many others do we have the so-called music present almost continuously. Often during dialogue the background "music" makes it hard to understand the words. The question arises: what do we see? A drama with music, an opera, operetta, a singspiel? Already fifty years ago when all this started, the French writer Georges Duhamel wrote several articles that were published in 1950 under the title "La Musique Consolatrice" which in English probably means "Music as Consolation, Comfort, Solace." He addresses the overuse of piped-in music, which started about that time. He says: " We are overfed with music. We are made sick by the music "ersatz" we hear everywhere... I ask you, what has a steak and the Largo of Handel in common? It is a sign of the times in which we live that the customer in stores, the guest in restaurants is seen as someone who is unable to digest more than a potpourri, a musical medley. It's assumed that he can hear only parts of pieces. To listen to a whole sonata, what an imposition!... We are getting a lukewarm injection of Wagner or Cesar Franck among pieces written by composers of no consequence. " We need a decree that forbids the composing and playing of potpourris, a decree forbidding the rape of musical masterworks, forbidding the mix of nourishment and music and for all music lovers the commandment: 'Before all else there must be SILENCE.' "Finally we should stop accosting the ears. Please remove all true music from such scandal. Is there no way to prevent the barbaric hands from touching the beautiful works of the masters? If we cannot bring order to this they will step on all we hold beautiful and which is the purpose and justification of life." Well, it has not gotten better: Wherever we go, restaurants, public places, outdoor and indoor shopping areas, our ears are accosted with "music." Why must we listen to this organized noise? We are force-fed this musical noise. It cheapens music. It breeds indifference to music. One of my students several years ago did a science project that determined whether her classmates learned better and quicker with or without music. The answer: without music. Recently I read that somewhere, I think it was in England, they decided to have a day without music. May be a backlash is starting. What is your view? Am I fighting windmills? Irmgard Smits 2079 Greenwood Road Allentown, PA 18103 E-mail: F.Smits@ieee.org Tel. 610-821-9497