Association News Items


A Call for Proposals for Festival 2023


Dear members of the American Matthay Association for Piano and all others with an interest in Tobias Matthay,

I’m writing this while wearing the “hat” of chair of the Festival Committee, looking ahead to our 2023 Festival at Penn State, June 28-July 1. We are excited about what we have secured so far: recitals by Cliburn Gold Medal winner Alexander Kobrin, Barry Snyder, Nick Susi, and Heather Lanners. Nick, our Vice President, is a winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs competition and is a newly appointed professor at the University of South Carolina. Heather Lanners is an associate professor of piano at Oklahoma State University. As some of you know, Barry Snyder was scheduled to headline our 2022 Duluth Festival but was sidelined by illness; he is a professor emeritus at Eastman and also a Silver Medal winner of the Cliburn.

Since Alexander Kobrin, who plays beautifully (as I heard in a recital at PSU a few years ago), grew up in the Russian tradition, the theme of this year's Festival is "Matthay at the Intersection." As many of you know, Matthay developed his systematic approach after observations of Anton Rubinstein, who was a seminal creator of the Russian "school" of pianism. We hope to explore together the intersections of these and other schools of pianistic thought, to better understand where they are similar, and where distinct. 

We have also booked some presentations for the Festival, but we have openings for several more. Please consider submitting a proposal (by a letter addressed to me at the email below my name) for a talk or lecture-recital! You might specify whether your presentation would require 50 minutes or 75, and whether PowerPoint is required. The deadline for these is midnight Monday, December 5. The proposal should be succinct, one or two paragraphs, and should be accompanied by an equally concise updated biography. A recent photograph would also be welcome. Accepted presentations will be publicized via the Matthay website.


Steven Smith
AMAP president and chair of the Festival Committee
shs1@psu.edu





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