Classical Piano Music!

We wish you a Happy New Year with a list of highly recommended reading from Piano Street. These are the 12 most read, discussed or shared articles of 2018. Read more...

The celebration of the holidays is not complete around NPR without the sounds of a jazz piano sprinkling joy and good cheer. This year’s intergenerational program of accomplished pianists reflects both the history of the music and its future. Read more...

As a collaborating partner, Piano Street is proud to present the first issue of ”The World of Piano Competitions”, a new magazine initiated by PIANIST Magazine (Netherlands and Germany) and its Editor-in-Chief Eric Schoones. Here we get a rich insight into the world of international piano competitions through the eyes of its producers and participants. Contributing Editors: Gustav Alink (Alink-Argerich Foundation), Stuart Isacoff, Patrick Jovell (Piano Street), Mario-Felix Vogt, KaJeng Wong. Piano Street is happy to share this first issue with our readers free of charge! Read more...

Sabine Liebner’s unfaltering decision to only play music to which she feels an inner affinity has led to her being primarily active as an interpreter of new music. She has premiered many works by contemporary composers and made important contributions performing and recording the music of 20th century composers like John Cage, Morton Feldman and Galina Ustvolskaya. For Liebner, music making is the solitary exploration of unknown terrain. She tries to listen to a score with no preconceptions, to discover its innate musical language. The results are often intriguing, and can sometimes even prove addictive, as in her recording of Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke I-XI. Read more...

A rare item that belonged to Glenn Gould has sold at auction in New York on December 5th for $100,000 US. The score of Bach’s Goldberg Variations contains the Canadian pianist’s detailed markings used while making his iconic 1981 recording of the piece. Read more...

Brain mapping has come far in the world and we can read a lot about recent research in this area. Scientists have for instance been able to map the mutual brain connections utilized in language development and musical training. A newly-charted region in the human brain, which so far has not been seen in other animals, may be responsible for extremely fine motor control such as our unique ability to play piano. Read more...

The annual international music festival celebrating the legacy of Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941) opened in Warsaw in late October and is now running for almost a month. This year the event also marks the centennial of national independence, which Poland regained after World War I. Piano Street's Patrick Jovell visited the festival in Warsaw and the Paderewski Birthday Celebration Concert. Read more...

Since the first edition of Boris Berman's Notes from the Pianist's Bench was published in 2000, it has been read by countless pianists, piano teachers, and piano students throughout the world. The book has been translated into several languages and adopted as a required text in universities and conservatories. Just recently, it was published in a second edition, available in both print and electronic formats. Piano Street's David Wärn met Mr. Berman at the Cremona Musica Piano Experience, to talk about the contents of the book, and about the changes and updates of the new edition. Read more...

2019-01-16Judith Smith, the dean of the Herb Alpert School of Music (UCLA), said the school of music donated pianos to the project. The School has about 150 pianos that they periodically recycle. Read more at dailybruin.com

2019-01-15"Most families don’t care much about the brand and most of the pianos they buy come from small Chinese factories," he said. "The most popular ones are priced between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan (US$3,000 to US$4,400), with some costing just a little over 10,000 yuan, which is much cheaper than comparable European or American brands." Read more at scmp.com

2019-01-14"These series of concerts in Germany were the first concerts to feature Tchaikovsky as conductor and included Siloti as soloist in the famous Piano Concerto No. 1 in B minor, a work that Siloti himself had much influence over." Read more at steinway.com

2019-01-13"To celebrate his milestone birthday, Fleisher appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at a near-sold-out concert at Strathmore on Saturday night. Fleisher graced the audience with a delightfully limpid account of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12, K. 414, a genial work that has become one of his late-career calling cards." Read more at washingtonpost.com

2019-01-12"Most of the Japanese players had previously been in military bands. The younger guys among them were the kingpins of the scene, along with a few musicians who'd played in Shanghai and places like that." Read more at nippon.com

2019-01-11"As Stephen Walsh shows in Debussy: A Painter in Sound - published in 2018, 100 years after the composer's death - Debussy craved this simplicity and directness, but he had trouble finding it in his own musical milieu. He admired older French music - its "clarity of expression, that precision and compactness of form" - but felt it had been corrupted by German influences." Read more at theatlantic.com

2019-01-10"Pianists are often insulated from their instrument in ways foreign to most players of other instruments - clarinetists clean and adjust their instruments regularly (even assembling and disassembling them each day)." Read more at newmusicusa.org

2019-01-08After deciding to swap classical music for jazz, and with Bill Evans as an early influence, Petrucciani's first significant appearance was at an outdoor jazz festival in Cliousclat, when he was 13. Read more at udiscovermusic.com