News

Guests and Piano Events
2007-2008

     
     
September 25-26   Gail Berenson, Visiting Lecturer in Piano Pedagogy
     
October 18   Jack Gibbons , Piano Master Class
     
March 8   Donna Turner Smith Piano Competition
     
March 8-9   Logan Skelton, Solo Recital and Master Class
     
March 25-26   Lisa Zdechlik, Visiting Lecturer in Piano Pedagogy
     
August 1-2  

Group Piano/Piano Pedagogy (GP3) Forum, held at OU

     

 

Current Activities in the OU Piano Pedagogy Program

OU pianists enjoy practicing in a newly renovated practice facility in the Donald W. Reynolds Performing Arts Center. In addition to the music practice wing, this splendid performance facility includes a renovated Holmberg Hall.

Pedagogy students and faculty teach on two new Clavinova piano labs and supporting technology equipment for use in the piano pedagogy classes and group piano program. Included in each piano lab are 16 keyboards, a teacher console and lab controller, a smart board, a data projector, a document camera for use with documents/overheads and other technological equipment.

The National Group Piano/Piano Pedagogy Symposium, a biennial event, will again take place on the OU campus in August 2008 with an expected 100 participants from across the country in attendance. The conference attracts piano pedagogy and group piano instructors from around the country as well as graduate students in piano pedagogy.

The OU MTNA Student Chapter won the MTNA "Student Chapter of the Year" award, presented at the 2007 Toronto conference in March 2007. Six graduate piano pedagogy students from the OU MTNA Student Chapter presented a session on applications of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory for music teachers at the MTNA National Conference in Austin in spring 2006.

Graduate students taught intermediate to lower advanced pianists in a series of two Saturday piano master classes held at the University of Oklahoma in fall 2007.

In spring 2008, three DMA students presented 5 hours each of workshop presentations as part of the terminal degree requirement for the DMA. Sessions included topics on research on exceptional teaching techniques, current trends in technology with applications to piano teaching, teaching compositions written in non-standard notation, implications of brain research for music educators, world music for piano teachers, practice suggestions for MacDowell's 12 Etudes, Op. 39, understanding repetitive strain injury, and others.

The Donna Turner Smith Competition in piano is held every two years on the first Saturday in March. The first prize award is around $3500 for a OU student who will be enrolled in piano the following year. Incoming students are invited to participate along with currently enrolled students. The next competition will be in spring 2010.

Currently two doctoral students in the OU Piano Pedagogy Program hold OU Alumni Graduate Fellowships in the amount of approximately $13,000 each per year. All doctoral applicants who have auditioned and been fully admitted by March 15 of any year are eligible for consideration in a competition that considers all eligible incoming School of Music doctoral students.

With the revitalization of the north campus arts centers, music majors in the practice rooms look out onto plush campus grounds where the over-sized sculpture titled “The Dreamer” lies, seemingly partially submerged in the ground. The practice facility is conveniently located close to the new patio with umbrellas and outdoor furniture for breaks and lunches directly in front of the Fine Arts Dean’s Office.

Recently two new Steinway L pianos were purchased for piano major practice in the grand piano practice rooms along with three full size Steinway upright pianos for general practice. A new 9’ Steinway D piano is housed on the stage of the Reynolds Performing Arts Center. The School of Music is continuing to purchase new Steinway pianos.

Recent visitors to the piano pedagogy program at OU have included Marvin Blickenstaff, Gail Berenson, Phyllis Lehrer, Joel Schoenhals, William Westney, E. L. Lancaster, Lisa Zdechlik, Michelle Conda and Dennis Alexander.

We continue to develop the Ruby Grant Piano Pedagogy Resource Center as a research center in piano with the addition of new computers, software and keyboards as well as musical scores, compact discs, and DVDs.