Rocherolle's impressive musical output over her long career is both broad and substantial. She has composed a total of 678 individual pieces and 108 collections for solo piano as well as chamber music with piano. In addition, Rocherolle has published some forty choral pieces, four band compositions, and a piece for flute and piano. Finally, there a...

Michelle Cann is making history as the newest female Caribbean American to join the piano faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music. Artina McCain (AM): It is a pleasure for me to interview you after watching your career blossom over the past decade. Let's start at the beginning. How did you get started with piano? Michelle Cann (MC): We had mu...

In my new role as Co-head of Keyboard at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in Australia, I find myself checking in frequently with colleagues here about the future of their students. Will they pursue graduate studies abroad? If so, in the US, Europe, or elsewhere? Do these students generally return "home" to Australia or do they remain abroad? ...

I attended Spencer Myer's practicing workshop at the NCKP 2019 Conference. His emphasis on engaging the brain in variable practice techniques sparked my interest and supports research on how we learn. I thought I knew every possible practice suggestion, but Spencer presented and demonstrated many new and unusual ideas that he was using in...

Kayo Anderson is a musician with LA Community Action Network (LA CAN), who works with Skid Row artists, many of whom are former industry-level musicians, to understand their unique challenges and help them facilitate their return to employability. In the United States, employment brings personal satisfaction but also stability for necessities such ...

Paloma O'Shea is a pianist, patron of the arts, and philanthropist. In her presence, one senses a formidable intellect, great passion, and a personal distinction that belongs to the age of aristocracy. She is intense, but affable and her eyes twinkle as she talks about her life and great loves. At eighty-three, she&nbs...

The Kanneh-Mason family is not your typical family. All seven siblings, whose ages range from nine to twenty-two, have achieved musical accomplishments far beyond their ages.  As both soloists and in ensemble, they have quite an impressive list of performances to their credit, including the BBC Young Musician competition, BBC Proms, the BAFTAS...

At the 2019 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, Jane Magrath and E. L. Lancaster will receive the NCKP Lifetime Achievement Award. Magrath grew up in South Carolina and earned degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wesleyan College, and a D.M. from Northwestern University. She joined the faculty of the University of Okl...

"Audiences across five continents—North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Africa—recognize the pianism of Daniel Pollack for its signature colors in sound, coupled with over-the-edge thrilling virtuosity, giving his performances an electrifying element that catches the imagination of concert audiences. Critics speak about 'his astonishing pi...

An Interview with Angela Cheng and Alvin Chow The National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy is thrilled to welcome Angela Cheng and Alvin Chow as the 2019 NCKP Conference Artists. This will be the second appearance at NCKP for the wife-husband duo, having first performed in 2005 as a tribute to pedagogue and mentor Nelita True. This year, Angel...

Setting the Scene Spencer Myer emerged as a concert pianist of note upon winning three important competitions shortly after the turn of this century. In 2004, he placed first in the UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa, then in 2006 he won the Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship from the American Pian...

Conversations, Part 1

"But that's the way my professor showed it to me!" Her eyes were open wide, her voice a wail. I was talking to a young teacher whose student had just played—poorly—in an international festival. In a subsequent masterclass I tried to show her a more efficient, better sounding way to teach her students to play chords. It hadn...

Two weeks before the death of eminent pianist and conductor Seymour Lipkin, Patricia Stowell had the opportunity to interview him for Clavier Companion magazine. Lipkin first gained public attention in 1948 after winning first prize at the Rachmaninoff Fund Piano Contest in New York. The Detroit native had studied with Rudolph Serkin and Mieczyslaw...

Keith, this column is generally reserved for composers, but you are much more than this as a pianist, composer, teacher, and editor. Which hat do you like best? That's a difficult question. I think of myself first as a pianist, but that's because it's the genesis for everything else I do. Teaching has been an inexhaustible fascination for me since ...

What kind of composer are you?  I would say I am a "fly by the seat of my pants" composer. At least it's been that way for the last several years. It seems I have very little time to just sit down and compose. I teach general music in school, accompany several choirs and vocal lessons at the local University, and play weekly at a Methodist chu...

When Benjamin Grosvenor walked onto the stage of Oberlin College's Finney Chapel, he easily could have been mistaken for one of the many piano majors on campus. From the opening measures of the Bach French Suite in G Major, however, any thoughts that Grosvenor was anything but a seasoned professional were quickly put to rest. At just 25 years of ag...

I met Lynda on FaceBook about five years ago and life has brought us together in real life many times since. The harmony in her compositions is a refreshingly unexpected departure from much of the pedagogical literature, and my students (young and old) all know who Ms. Lynda is. She mentions "Coal Miner's Lullaby" from Alaska Sk...