The SCORE, September

President’s Message

Debbie Gillette

There’s something about “back to school” that never ceases to arouse excite-ment in my piano teacher mind. Students come back to lessons with a fresh eagerness, a renewed commitment to practicing, a willingness to try new mu-sic. What composer, what new piece will spark each student, grow technique and musicality? Is this the year to embark on AIM or polish a Sonatina for the Sonata-Sonatina Festival, or even enter the Competition in May? This fall, I am honored to begin serving as your President. Many thanks to Jennifer Merry, our outgoing President for her help and guidance during this transition. My condolences to Jennifer, for the loss last May of her beloved husband, Bruce Berr, NSMTA Membership Chairman and nationally re-nowned piano teacher. NSMTA will miss his presence dearly. We are thankful for Bruce’s many years of leadership service to our group as well as being honored as our 2013 Member of the Year. I recently learned that Bruce, him-self a national leader in pedagogy, regularly recorded his teaching so he could always improve his teaching. I challenge all of us to take his lead and record at least one lesson this fall. One of the greatest benefits of being part of a piano teaching group is the ability to motivate and push each other to be our best. This summer has been a busy time for the Website Committee as Sky Floor, LLC, a website design company, has been employed to build a new 21st cen-tury website for NSMTA. Parents increasingly turn online to search for piano teachers. A great benefit of membership to NSMTA will be the increased web presence of our group, especially through the “Find a Teacher” link. Joel Mil-ler from Sky Floor will join us for the pre-meeting on Sept. 24 at 9:30 for the big reveal of our new website. Last spring we learned that Steinway in Northbrook was closing and Mary Beth Molenaar, our industrious incoming Vice President, led an exhaustive search of libraries, community centers and churches for an affordable central location that included good parking and the ability to reserve in advance for the entire year. We are pleased to be hosted for the 2018-19 year at the Win-nekta Covenant Church, 1200 Hibbard Rd., in Wilmette. Barbara Kreader is our speaker and we will continue our first meeting tradition of sharing a lunch together at the meeting’s conclusion. Plan on staying for this time to reconnect with old friends and make new ones.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

President’s Message .................1

Presentation .............................2

Pre-Meeting Presentation .......3

AIM News ................................3

2019 Competition Repertoire ..4

2018 ISMTA Conference .........4

Announcements .......................5

The SCORE, September 2018 1

Debbie Gillette

September 24 Presentation

A Love Letter to Our Profession. Teaching Students to Work on their Own: We can give students a list of helpful prac-tice hints, but how can we help them learn to schedule their own practice time, set up their own practice space, and enter into a mindset that brings their curiosity and creativity to eve-ry practice session.

Barbara Kreader Ska-linder Biography

Barbara Kreader is a Keyboard Consultant for Educational Keyboard Publications to the Hal Leonard Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has taught piano continuously for over 40 years. A faculty member of Northwestern Uni-versity's Division of Preparato-ry and Community Music from 1974-1985, she has also main-tained an independent studio in Evanston, Illinois from 1973 to the present. As a child and young adult, Kreader studied piano with Beth Miller Harrod, attending Rocky Ridge Music Center in Estes Park, Colorado for seven summers. She was the Pro-gram Director of the Junior Student Seminars at Rocky Ridge from 1998-2003. A graduate of Northwestern University, Kreader earned a M.M. in Piano Performance in 1974 studying piano with Lau-rence Davis and piano peda-

gogy with Frances Larimer. The editor of Clavier magazine from 1982-1988, Kreader has published articles in Clavier, The Piano Quarter-ly, and Keyboard Companion. She was the editor of the Parent/Teacher/Child column in Keyboard Companion from 1992-2006 and currently serves as Clavier Compan-ion's Senior Consulting Editor and as a regular columnist.

Kreader served as moderator for the three Baldwin/Clavier Keyboard Teacher's Videoconferences presented in 1986, 1987, and 1988. From 1988-1989 she instituted a Baldwin-sponsored program of piano lessons and supervised practice in the after-school child care programs in the Ev-anston District 65 schools. She joined Hal Leonard in Novem-ber 1989. Barbara Kreader is a co-author of over 40 titles in the Hal Leonard Student Piano Li-brary, a piano method for chil-dren. She has given work-shops in over 250 cities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Sin-gapore, and Malaysia. Kreader's book, The Music of Teaching: Learning to Trust Students' Natural Develop-ment was published by Hal Leonard Corporation on July 1, 2016.

2

Barbara Kreader Skalinder

The SCORE, September 2018

Pre-Meeting

Presentation Web Site Reveal - Joel Miller Join us at our meeting September 24th to get a first look at our brand new website. We will be getting a walk through of the website from Joel Miller of The Sky Floor. He will be presenting our new in-teractive member direc-tory, calendar, and more. Biography: Joel Miller is the co-founder of The Sky Floor, a digital marketing agen-cy focused on making it easier for businesses and organizations to improve their presence online. Joel is about to enter his 10th year of developing websites. He has been a guitar player since he was 15, which he picked up af-ter 7 years of piano les-sons.

3

Joel Miller

AIM Theory Exams:

Online Registration Begins - November 5, 2018

Theory Judges Meeting - November 12, 2018 at Marlene Chatain’s home

Online Registration Closes - December 7, 2018

Repertoire Substitution Request Deadline - January 15, 2019

Level 12 Repertoire Approval Deadline - January 15, 2019

All levels - January 20, 2019 at Northwestern Academy & MIC, Lake Forest

All levels - January 27, 2019 at Northwestern Academy & MIC, Lake Forest

AIM Performance Exams:

Online Registration Begins - February 25, 2019

Judges Meeting - March 4, 2019 at Marlene Chatain’s home

Exam Online Registration Closes - March 11, 2019

Exams (levels 1 and 2 only) - April 14, 2019 at MIC, Winnetka

Exams (levels 3-12) - April 28, 2019 at Northwestern Academy & MIC, Lake Forest

Exams (levels 3-12) - May 5, 2019 at Northwestern Academy & MIC, Lake Forest

Fees:

Levels 1-2: $15

Levels 3-8: $25

Levels 9-12: $30

The SCORE, September 2018 The SCORE, September 2018

AIM NEWS Congratulations to the following students that have completed AIM Level 12 this year. It is a tremendous accomplishment for both students and teach-ers!

Rebecca Ainsenberg, student of Martha Yelenosky Jennifer An, student of Brenda Huang Faith Chen, student of Birdi Dawson Sylvia Chen, student of Jennifer Cohen Lauren Collins, student of Annie Hsiao Hannah Davismeier, student of Brenda Huang Michael De La Rosa, student of Jessica Walker Matthew Early, student of Birdi Dawson Abigail Froyshteter, student of Tatyana Stepanova Lisa Gong, student of Annie Hsiao Elmira Hezarkhani, student of Jia-Yee Tang Cindy Ho, student of Brenda Huang Isabella Kiedroswski, student of Martha Yelenosky Josh Melnick, student of Martha Yelenosky Jasmine Sun, student of Galina Kostukovsky Annie Wang, student of Brenda Huang Grace Yu, student of Vivian Zhao

2019 NSMTA Piano

Competition Repertoire

4

Primary Division: (Grades 1-3)

C.P.E. Bach, Allegro in G Major, H.328, Wq.116:54. (Little Scherzo in Mu-

sic for Millions, vol. 17, with Repeats!)

Aram Khachaturian, Melody. (Music for Millions, vol.17)

Elementary Division: (Grades 4-6)

Georg Philipp Telemann, Fantasia in g minor, TWV 33:8. (Music for Mil-

lions, vol. 37)

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Reverie, [Sweet Dreams] in C Major, Op. 39

no.21.

(Music for Millions, vol. 17)

Junior Division: (Grades 7-9)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sonata no.9 in D major, K. 311 (1st Movement)

I.Allegro con spirito

Frederic Chopin, Nocturne in B major, Op. 32 no.1.

Senior Division: (Grades 10-12)

J.S.Bach, Prelude from English Suite No.3 in G minor, BWV 808

Alberto Ginastera, Danzas Argentinas, Op.2 (no.1 and no.2)

1. Danza del viejo boyero

2. Danza de la moza donasa

Attend the 2018

ISMTA Confer-

ence in October!

2018 Annual Conference

Illinois State Music

Teachers Association

October 26-27, 2019

Northern Illinois Universi-

ty – Dekalb, Illinois.

More information can be

found by visiting the

ISMTA website:

https://ismta.org/

conference

The SCORE, September 2018

Be part of a unique musical experience as a member of the Oakton Six Piano

Ensemble. Auditions for this internationally acclaimed touring group will be on

Wednesday, September 12, Thursday, September 13 and Monday, Sep-

tember 17 from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. (or by appointment) in Room 1360 at

Oakton Community College, 1600 East Golf Road, Des Plaines. For more in-

formation about the auditions, contact Glenna Sprague at gspra-

gue@oakton.edu or (847) 635-1905.

Interested pianists may bring a prepared piano piece, but music will be provid-

ed. The group performs repertoire from the classical, ragtime, jazz, and popu-

lar periods that is transcribed for the six pianos by the ensemble’s founder and

conductor, Glenna Sprague, Professor and Coordinator of Music at Oakton,

where she also teaches piano. Performing with a conductor, the rich layered

sound of the Six Piano Ensemble is comparable to that of an orchestra, with

each member playing a different part of a composition as the melody transfers

from pianist to pianist. The ensemble provides an excellent opportunity for

those pianists who do not want to perform as soloists, but want to keep up their

playing skills and be part of an ensemble situation.

The group has performed both internationally and throughout the United States,

including the World Conference of the International Society for Music Education

(ISME) at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow; College Music Soci-

ety International Conference in Vienna, Austria; Hawaii Music Teachers Associ-

ation in Honolulu; MTNA National Conferences in Atlanta and Spokane, numer-

ous MTNA state conferences; Music Teachers’ Association of California State

Convention in Los Angeles; GP3 National Conference at University of Oklaho-

ma; Steinway of Chicago Community Concert Series, Harold Washington Li-

brary, Navy Pier, Civic Opera House, and the National Conference on Key-

board Pedagogy in Chicago.

Critics hail the Oakton Six Piano Ensemble as “extraordinary, innovative, tech-

nically superb and musical.”

Oakton Six Piano Ensemble Auditions

5

Primary Division: (Grades 1-3)

C.P.E. Bach, Allegro in G Major, H.328, Wq.116:54. (Little Scherzo in Mu-

sic for Millions, vol. 17, with Repeats!)

Aram Khachaturian, Melody. (Music for Millions, vol.17)

Elementary Division: (Grades 4-6)

Georg Philipp Telemann, Fantasia in g minor, TWV 33:8. (Music for Mil-

lions, vol. 37)

Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Reverie, [Sweet Dreams] in C Major, Op. 39

no.21.

(Music for Millions, vol. 17)

Junior Division: (Grades 7-9)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sonata no.9 in D major, K. 311 (1st Movement)

I.Allegro con spirito

Frederic Chopin, Nocturne in B major, Op. 32 no.1.

Senior Division: (Grades 10-12)

J.S.Bach, Prelude from English Suite No.3 in G minor, BWV 808

Alberto Ginastera, Danzas Argentinas, Op.2 (no.1 and no.2)

1. Danza del viejo boyero

2. Danza de la moza donasa

September 24th Meeting - New Location!

Our meetings this year will be at Winnetka Covenant Church in Wil-mette (right on the border). The church is just north of Lake Street on Hibbard. From the north on 94 take the Skokie Blvd. exit. From the south take the Lake Ave. exit. The church is also easily accessible by city streets. The address is: 1200 Hibbard Road Wilmette, IL

Watch for signs on the door, but plan to park in the parking lot and come in the NORTH door by the children’s playground. We will meet this month in the “Upper Room” which is just up the steps immediately by the door. There is also an elevator at the end of the hallway on the left (just past the children’s classrooms. If you have questions, please contact Mary Beth at: m-molenaar@northwestern.edu

Announcements

Luncheon at

September

meeting

We are looking for-

ward to the annual

luncheon after our

meeting September

24!

As in the past it will

be potluck. I will pro-

vide the coffee and

water and also will

order a couple of

trays of sandwiches.

Would everyone else

please bring a small

plate of side dishes

such as fruit or fresh

veggies or sal-

ad? Thank you! Su-

san Corkum, Hospi-

tality.

The SCORE, September 2018 The SCORE, September 2018

Winnetka Covenant Church