Composers & New Repertoire

Recently I attended a workshop in Stouffville.  At first I had been looking out for a building or community centre but I eventually learned that the address given to me was someone's house!  A beautiful home sort of hidden behind bushes and I had to drive up a really long gravel pathway up a small hill that led up to a semi circle-shaped driveway.  I heard a dog barking when I rang the doorbell lol and noticed a big fluffy dark curly-haired puppy sitting on the other side of the room staring at me when I walked in.... so cute.

The meeting was held in a living room complete with a row of chairs and two pianos: one gorgeous antique Steinway grand (for the demonstrations) & a smaller upright-sized mahogany piano in the corner.  The workshop was presented by an association I'm involved with in music & featured Red Leaf Pianoworks (a group of very experienced piano teachers who were also Canadian composers of contemporary music. They showcased a lot of their pieces that were popular with students).  It was great that they were able to stop by in town for the session as I'm sure they do a ton of travelling all over Canada - it was very informative.

Three reps from the group were able to make the trek here & there were so many new, imaginative & unique songs discussed from their repertoire that I'm sure I'll be able to incorporate some of them into my own lessons down the road.  A lot of brilliant techniques were introduced and utilized; I was especially attentive when it came to beginner-level repertoire.  Some of them can also be used in Royal Conservatory of Music examinations (contemporary selections) as long as you receive approval from RCM prior to entering the exam as part of the paperwork process.  Many of the works were designed as performance pieces so that they produced a sophisticated sound while the theoretical make-up (ie how it's written / note-reading) isn't too difficult and can be managed quite well.

My favourite selections were from the book "Little Hands Big Pieces" for solo piano which is equivalent to about Grade 4 RCM level.  The pieces cover a lot of important basics for beginners such as hand positioning, coordinating right & left hands and rhythm. Also, its colourful cover design I'm sure makes things much more visually-pleasing for students.  Another book I really enjoyed was "Old MacDonald Had the Blues" targeted towards Grades 1 to 4 RCM levels.  You wouldn't believe how cool nursery rhymes sound when you play them with jazz rhythms and the Blues scale...  Just to name a few: "Mary Had A Little Jam", "Three Cool Mice" and "London Bridge Is Gettin' Down".

Red Leaf Pianoworks: http://www.redleafpianoworks.com/.