Some advice please?!?!?! Should I change examination boards?

[dee101]

Hi everyone!

Since I started piano in my mid teens, I have been sitting exams with the Royal Irish Academy of Music. I've sat up to Grade 6 with them, mainly because I didn't have much choice with my previous teachers. My present teacher, I asked her a few weeks ago about it. She only has covered RIAM but she has no problem with me changing if that's what I choose (I'm a student in my mid twenties now and I know what I to learn and where I want to go). The main reason she ever heard of a change is because of the choice of pieces on the syllabuses.

I started my Grade 7 with the RIAM but time got the better of me so I decided to prepare a recital medal exam instead which I'll sit in the winter session but hoping to have started a new Grade 7 programme in September. The thing is nothing on the Grade 7 syllabus really jumps out at me. So far only a Bach Prelude and a Debussy, which caters for the 2 out of 3 but that's where I get stuck. I want to learn music from composers I like and want I will want to keep playing long after the exams.

I've been looking at the Trinity Guildhall and the pieces sound very varied as well as the studies, which RIAM don't have.

I'm also waiting on the ABRSM 2013 syllabus to be published in July before I make my mind up.

Any options for other exam boards and opinions would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Dee