Clavier Companion - January/February 2012 - 50

First Looks

First Looks
Susan Geffen, Editor
Book, New Music, CDs & DVDs, Pupil Saver, News & Notes

Susan Geffen is a Managing Editor of Clavier Companion. She is active as an educator, adjudicator, presenter, panelist, and writer. She is a specialist in Recreational Music Making and has also worked as a composer’s assistant and orchestral score proofreader.

Closer look
What Music Means To Me, photography by Richard Rejino. The What Music Means To Me Project is an ongoing enterprise that includes a book, a DVD, a website, and speaking engagements by author/ photographer/musician Richard Rejino. Established in 2008, the project’s mission is to raise awareness about music (and, with time, the other arts) by gathering affecting testimonials from students, teachers, and performers. At a time when arts funding is on the decline, this effort makes a persuasive case for the benefits of music education. But the reach of the project is even broader than that. The book, What Music Means To Me, is an inspirational journal portraying fortyfive musicians in words and photographs. Rejino accompanies his photos with autobiographical narratives written by musicians of different ages and cultural backgrounds. Because only first names are given, each subject provides a story that retains an individual viewpoint while conveying universality. For example, there is John, for whom music has accompanied every significant event in his life. And Jonathan, who escaped from a ghetto environment by enrolling in a music program. And Olmar, a high-school junior who, with no family support, left home in order to continue his opera studies. Throughout, the book explores themes about finding happiness, about belonging to a community, and about overcoming disapproval. In at least one case, music literally meant survival. The tale of crushing hardship endured by Grace during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when music scores were burned and playing instruments was treated as a crime, is truly heart-rending. While doing three years of forced manual labor on a rice farm with no electricity, she wondered whether she would ever play the piano again. Her hope pulled her through. The evocative photographs, which dom-

This issue’s contributors:

Jeffrey Chappell has performed throughout the United States and Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He is an award-winning composer who has written for Piano & Keyboard and Clavier, and he is on the faculties of Goucher College and The Levine School of Music. For more information, visit jeffreychappell.com. Vanessa Cornett-Murtada is the Director of Keyboard Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, where she teaches courses in piano and piano pedagogy. She is an international clinician and performing artist and works as a performance coach and certified hypnotherapist for musicians struggling with performance anxiety.

Carmen Doubrava is an active adjudicator, accompanist, teacher, and performer who has performed in Texas, Michigan, New York, Colorado, Wisconsin, and at the U. S. Department of State. She lives in Carrollton, Texas, and has been featured in articles in Keyboard Companion, Clavier, and The Dallas Morning News. Kristin Elgersma holds a D. M. and M.M. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University and has been on faculties at Northwestern, the Interlochen Arts Camp, and Chicago's Merit School of Music, among others. In the fall of 2010, she joined the faculty of the University of Idaho Lionel Hampton School of Music as Assistant Professor of Piano. Julie Knerr received degrees in piano performance and piano pedagogy from University of Puget Sound, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and University of Oklahoma. She is currently on faculty at Oklahoma City University, where she teaches group piano and piano pedagogy. In addition, she teaches in her private studio in Norman, OK, and conducts research in piano pedagogy. Additional contributors listed on the next page

inate the space in the book, are as important as the essays. We see the musicians playing or holding their instruments—or just looking into the camera—and bearing expressions as diverse as the topics of the essays. Confident. Lost. Joyful. Strong. Private. Music means many things to many people. An accompanying DVD contains a sampling of the text selections, read by the authors. You get to hear the sound of these people’s voices, but the voices merely point out the missing element: the sound of the music. After someone says that he can express the feelings inside of him more clearly through music than he ever could in words, you wish the next thing on the soundtrack would be his piano playing. Further, locating recordings or videos is tricky without the full names of the musicians. Rejino expects to address these issues as the project expands. In the meantime, the website, whatmusicmeanstome.org, has begun to post new essays by additional musicians. The idea has taken on a life of its own, and, as stated in the book, many music teachers have been motivated to have their own students write about what music means to them. The project continues to enrich our musical landscape. (Hal Leonard, 2011, 96 pages. $29.99) —Jeffrey Chappell

New music
(S2) Midtown Jam
by Mike Springer. I’m finding more and more students request and love playing jazzy pieces. Although much of the time these students are not advanced enough to read jazz in its original form, Midtown Jam is a piece that provides young players with a meaty jazz solo. Right-hand patterns in the blues scale are set over bass open sevenths, dominantseventh chords, and a walking blues-scale line. The rhythms are simple, repetitive, and very catchy, and can be played straight or in a swing style. The tune uses accents and rests for rhythmic emphasis and style, along with a wide variety of dynamics
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

CLAVIER COMPANION

Clavier Companion - January/February 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clavier Companion - January/February 2012