Learning Phasing, Understanding Rubato & Performance Anxiety
Sunday 14th May 2023 (11:30 – 15:15 BST)
The Piano Teachers’ Course UK is pleased to offer a new series of online workshops for piano players and teachers. Hosted in partnership with Informance Publishing, these workshops offer new ideas, inspiration and practical tips wherever you might be on your pianistic journey!
Our fourth set of workshops in this series takes place on Sunday 14th May with presentations by Ilga Pitkevica on learning and teaching phrasing, Kris Worsley on understanding rubato in late romantic composers and Lucinda Mackworth-Young on strategies for dealing with performance anxiety.
Schedule
Learning Phrasing for Musical Expression (11:30 – 12:30 BST)
What is phrasing? Is it something that comesonly instinctively and intuitively or can it be taught and developed? Are there any rules to follow or is there such thing as a wrong phrasing?
The concept of phrasing is often overlooked by pianists and teachers when learning or teaching a piece. Some pianists follow their natural instincts to project their musical thoughts. But is this always correct? Others are shy and often end up simply “doing dynamics” resulting in their playing not engaging the listener. Is there a way to overcome this problem and develop musicality?
In this session, Ilga Pitkevica will answer these questions and demonstrate how understanding and knowledge of the rules of correct phrasing can help to develop musicality and expressiveness in everyone’s playing.
Understanding Tempo Rubato of the Later Romantics (13:00 – 14:00 BST)
In this follow-on from his March presentation, Kris Worsley continues his discussion of Tempo Rubato. Having discussed earlier forms in relation to the music of Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, the discussion here will focus upon composers who advocated later styles of rubato, including Hensel, Brahms and Rachmaninov.
Kris will discuss various means by which composers left clues in their music (often missed by modern performers!) for how tempo rubato could be used in performance and how learning to read such clues leads to a more advanced understanding of the musical language and of the works themselves.
Practical Psychology for Performance Anxiety (14:15 – 15:15 BST)
In the last session of the day, Lucinda Mackworth-Young will give you a deeper understanding of the causes of performance anxiety. She will also demonstrate a wide variety of practical strategies for preparing yourself (or your pupils) physically, mentally, emotionally and musically, for secure and satisfying performances which you all enjoy giving.
Format & ticket options
The sessions will be presented via Zoom and participants will have opportunities to ask questions via chat during various sessions and afterwards by email. The sessions will be filmed in studio and all ticket holders will receive high-definition recordings after the event. Therefore if you can’t join us live, you can still watch the presentations at your convenience afterwards.
Tickets for all three sessions cost £50 (£30 for Online Academy subscribers & PTC alumni) and can be purchased here or by clicking on the "Buy now" button below. Further information and links to purchase recordings for the previous events are available here.
