theme recital programs

[kitty on the keys]

I am starting to gather information for recitals with themes. Fellow teachers would you please share what themes worked for you....and ones to avoid. Thank you for your time and help.

Kitty on the Keys

[nanabush]

A season could work.  I can think of a ton of pieces associated with spring - classical and popular.

One teacher did 'music in the movies' a while ago.  I did "The heart asks pleasure first" by Michael Nyman; there were actually a lot of classical pieces that come up here or there that people played too.

[pianisten1989]

You can do basically anything..

Theme and variations
Southern European (france, spain...)
Northern European (sweden, norway...)
Music from "The country you're from"
Complete Inventions/WTK I, WTK II...

[mike_lang]

For what it's worth, here are some themed recitals that my piano studio gave while I was in college:

Goldberg Variations (2 variations to each studio member)

Debussy Preludes

Dupont - La Maison dans les lunes; Les heures dolentes

Music and Images (for example, one person played Webern's variations and had slide-show pictures of the Swiss Alps . . . each featuring a goat - LOL)

Chopin Mazurkas

Sarabandes (from the Bach Partitas and Dance Suites)

[pianoplayjl]

perhaps do an all composer recital e.g. all Liszt recital.