2024 Featured Clinicians
Presentations
Dr. Stephanie Bruning (MD): Morgan State University
Outside the Box: Teaching Piano Students with Dyslexia
“Researchers approximate that 2 in every 10 of your piano students have Dyslexia. However, only one of those students may have a diagnosis. Dyslexia is one of the most common learning differences that students face, and many do not even know they have it. Musically, it can affect areas such as note reading, rhythm identification, clef recognition, theory skills, eye movements on the staff, trouble with finger numbers, memory of music and musical skills, concentration, and most importantly confidence. As a teacher and parent, I missed many signs indicating that my son has Dyslexia. Diagnosing his Dyslexia has transformed my approach to teaching all my students. This lecture will delve into what Dyslexia looks like, how it effects young musicians, and ways to effectively work with your Dyslexic students. Interviews with expert teachers who are certified to teach Dyslexic students will offer insight towards how we as music teachers can teach outside the box with intelligent students who may need a different approach.”
Nicole DiPaolo (IN): Indiana University
Teaching the Hypermobile Piano Student
“With current trends in piano pedagogy moving toward fully integrating and embracing atypical students, it has become much more common for us to see students with signs of pronounced joint hypermobility or even Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a systemic hypermobility condition that commonly appears alongside autism and ADHD. However, guidance on how to instruct such students in ways that both honor their body types and teach healthy piano technique is surprisingly hard to find. My talk takes an accommodation-oriented approach rather than a change-oriented approach, given that EDS does not always improve with age and progression is unpredictable. The talk is structured in two parts. The first, in more of a lecture format, will provide an overview of benign joint hypermobility syndrome and full EDS, then outline some physical and neurological symptoms that are relevant to us as studio teachers and may require us to change the way we structure such students’ lessons in more ways than you’d think. The second half of the talk will be spent on demonstrating hypermobility-friendly technique in the tradition of György Sándor, whose student Michele Cooker reformed my own technique and allowed me to work around my own currently worsening hypermobility to develop and maintain a fulfilling career in collaborative piano performance. I will allocate some time near the end for questions, additional demonstrations, and discussion as desired.”
Dr. Michael Langer (SC): Limestone University
Improvisation as Political Resistance: Frederic Rzewski’s North American Ballads
“Frederic Rzewski’s (1938-2021) North American Ballads (1979) for solo piano is a group of political works that include improvisation. These Ballads can pose challenges to performers in terms of interpreting their nuanced historical and political ideology. My lecture recital shows how Rzewski’s political ideology manifests in the Ballads, especially
in the improvisation included in the score. I argue that this work acts as an object of political resistance and that when the performer improvises, they too embody resistance. This is based on my assertion that, to Rzewski, improvisation allows the performer the power to resist the hegemony of composer authority by way of inserting their own “voice” into performance.
I highlight the third movement, “Down by the Riverside,” a series of variations based on the same song which had been used as part of political resistance to the Vietnam War. I explore the philosophical implications of this work and offer my interpretive recommendations to performers.”
