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Finding clothing to perform in which is stylish, flattering, and, above all, comfortable and practical can be tricky and high street stores tend not to cater that well for performers. We need clothes which allow freedom of movement, which do not distract us when we play (there is nothing worse than a tickly label or zip), which look good when we stand to take a bow and when we are seated at the piano. The type of venue and time of day also dictate what to wear: one does not need a full-length evening gown for a lunchtime concert, for example.

It’s much easier for the men. Now that the very formal attire of white tie and tails has largely disappeared, men can choose to wear a dark suit or dark shirt and trousers. Some favour a dark tee-shirt under a dark jacket, others tend towards the Nehru jacket. .

Women, on the other hand, are still expected to turn out in full-length gowns which hark back to the age of Dame Moura Lympany. There are of course exceptions: the Chinese pianist Yuja Wang has made a name for herself almost as much through her daring dresses and vertiginous stiletto heels (how on earth does she pedal in them?) as through her playing. She has been criticised for her risky hemlines, but as she herself says “I can wear long skirts when I’m 40”; she is a young woman who clearly loves fashion and has an enviably svelte figure.

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Yuja Wang (photo: The Telegraph)

Sadly, I do not have the body and legs of Yuja wang, so I prefer concert clothes which cover my legs, draw attention away from the “lumpy, bumpy” parts of my middle-aged body, and which make me feel graceful and elegant and, importantly, comfortable when I perform. Tight bodices or restrictive sleeves are a no no, as are strapless dresses (and frankly I don’t have the gym-honed arms for such attire). The British women’s fashion chain PhaseEight creates elegant and affordable maxi dresses in a fluid silky jersey fabric which are flattering and comfortable to wear. They also offer more formal full-length gowns, embellished with sequins and beads, for special occasions. I have also worn long skirts by Ghost: their signature “bias cut” dresses and skirts suit most sizes and shapes, and their crepe fabric packs well for travelling – another consideration if you’re a musician who lives out of a suitcase.

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‘Kathleen’ dress
Alert to the needs of musicians, a new clothing company called Black Dress Code has launched a collection especially for musicians. Those who play in orchestras or sing in choirs are well aware that a fairly plain black outfit is the dress code for such organisations and Black Dress Code has created stylish and practical clothes with this in mind. In addition to the very elegant full-length black ‘Kathleen’ dress, there are midi dresses, a jumpsuit and palazzo pants (especially useful for cellists and bass players), simple black tops with 3/4 sleeves and silky sashes to enhance skirts and trousers. The designers have clearly thought about what musicians do with their bodies when playing and how clothing “interacts” with gestures and movements. There is a small range of skirts for girls, and a men’s range is in preparation. My only criticism is that the largest size is a UK 16 (because, sadly, some of us do not have the slim proportions of Yuja Wang or Khatia Buniatishvilli). If you’re looking for something to wear for an audition or ensemble work, I would certainly recommend taking a look at Black Dress Code’s collection. When I posted a link to BDC’s site on Facebook, many of my female colleagues and friends reacted very positively and enthusiastically to the collection.

View the Black Dress Collection here

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On 20 June 2016 St John’s Smith Square announced its 2016/17 Season. With over 300 concerts and many individual series, workshops and strands, this season further strengthens St John’s Smith Square’s core mission: to be a centre of excellence for chamber orchestras, choral and vocal music and period instrument groups. St John’s Smith Square also plays a vital function in presenting new work (with over 30 world premieres already announced for 16/17) and supporting emerging artists (including an own-promoted Young Artists’ Series).

There is plenty to interest and excite lovers of piano music: the popular and excellent International Piano Series will continue at SJSS, its temporary home while the Southbank Centre undergoes refurbishment. IPS highlights include the outstanding young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor (4 October 2016), runner-up at the 2010 International Chopin Competition Ingolf Wunder (19 November 2016) and winner of the same competition Yulianna Avdeeva (29 March 2016). Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich perform music for 2 pianos as part of Southbank Centre’s year-long festival Belief and Beyond Belief in partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (24 January 2017). This concert also forms part of Southbank Centre’s International Chamber Music Series.

In addition there will be performances by other pianists, including SJSS Young Artist Christina McMaster, Zubin Kanga, Geoffrey Saba, Rolf Hind, Howard Shelley and Martino Tirimo.

Richard Heason, Director of St John’s Smith Square said: 

“I am thrilled to be able to launch another season packed with exciting and stimulating concerts. It is particularly exciting to see international partnerships, with groups like Les Talens Lyriques and Stradivaria, starting to come to fruition. I am very keen to ensure that St John’s Smith Square presents a dynamic and individual programme and that we devote our energy to ensuring we present top quality artists. Alongside the distinctive baroque programme we offer it is also very rewarding to welcome artists presenting contemporary music and commissions. My sincere thanks go out to all those partners who have collaborated to make this programme possible. St John’s Smith Square receives no public subsidy and so we are reliant on the friendship and support of those who believe in our mission to be one of the UK’s leading concert halls.”

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Pianist, composer and teacher Peter Feuchtwanger has died. I never met Peter, though I wanted to, but I felt a connection to him and his wisdom via my teachers who studied with him, and also via pianist friends and colleagues who were taught by him and spoke of his inspirational, sympathetic and experimental approach to piano technique and piano playing.

In addition to his own piano studies with Gerti Rainer (a pupil of Emil von Sauer), Max Egger, Edwin Fischer and Walter Gieseking, Peter Feuchtwanger also studied composition with Hans Heimler (a pupil of Alban Berg, Heinrich Schenker and Felix Weingartner) and Lennox Berkeley, as well as Indian and Arabic music and philosophy. His Studies in an Eastern Idiom (Tariqas) and Variations on an Eastern Folk Tune are inspired by Eastern folk and art music and demonstrate inventive use of the piano’s sonority, texture and pedal effects to suggest Arabic, Indian and other Eastern instruments, styles and motifs.

Largely self-taught, he formed his personal conclusions about technique through experimentation that was free from the dogma or narrow approach of “schools” of piano teaching or formal musical training. As a consequence, he was regarded by some within the profession with suspicion, while those who studied with him and absorbed his wisdom are full of praise for his ability to think outside the box of traditional piano technique and talk of the transformative power of his teaching.

Most people are slaves to technique. But technique is not about playing mechanically and quickly, it is also about tone-balance, colours…. – Peter Feuchtwanger

His piano exercises were developed to relax the hand without making it completely powerless. The specified fingerings encourage the smooth, elliptical, natural choreography of the hands and fingers, and allow the instrument to be played with the greatest relaxation of the body, resulting in tension-free playing and a beautiful sound.

Touching tributes from some of his former pupils

I will never forget the kindness shown me by Peter Feuchtwanger……..without his guidance and generosity of soul I doubt I would be a musician today. He criticised perpetually (with characteristic vibrancy and charm), strove to make me realise my finest self, instinctively understood me, was a considerate listener, was a fountain of naughty jokes, never doubted me and proved to be far more than merely my piano teacher.

You haven’t died, Peter; your legacy lives with the vitality of every string set into vibration by the many pianists who’s lives you touched.
RIP (DG)

….his vast knowledge of styles of playing, along with his unique technical approach, have been incredible for my development, and I’m constantly amazed at his generosity, and commitment to teaching. (DR)

He brought out the absolute best in his pupils by his unquestioning faith in his pupils’ abilities, and his loyal support and generosity of time. The universal truth in his technique will live on in his many hundreds of students. (WMS)

Great teachers never die: their wisdom and enduring legacy is passed down to their students, and continues through successive generations of pianists.

Bel Canto on a percussion instrument – article by Peter Feuchtwanger

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“Listening to music, for me, is like inhabiting a landscape – an inner world, bounded by an intricate web of feelings, memories, expectations and associations that are brought to life through the properties of sound and rhythm” – Douglas Finch

inner_landscapes_cdcoverInner Landscapes, the first ever recording of composer and pianist Douglas Finch’s piano and chamber music, is a compelling collection of ten works which capture an ‘inner world’ of a particular landscape – in Canada, Germany, North Wales and New York. Finch was drawn to the art of Canadian painter Emily Carr (1871-1945), who has long been one of his favourite painters, in particular for her landscape paintings of the west coast of British Columbia which evoke feelings of “loneliness and quiet rapture”, and his music explores similar themes of solitude, mourning and spiritual longing.

Performed by Canadian flautist Lisa Nelsen, pianist Aleksander Szram, cellist Caroline Szram, and violinists Mieko Kanno and Toby Tramaseur, the music spans Finch’s compositional output from his early 20s, when he lived in Canada, to the present, after he moved to the UK in 1993. A renowned improviser, most of the pieces on this debut CD grew out of ideas resulting from his improvisations.

I recently heard British pianist Steven Osborne perform music by Morton Feldman, and I was immediately struck by a similar stillness and sense of time suspended in Douglas Finch’s music, with its carefully chosen and exquisitely placed sounds, delicate droplets of notes, plangent bass interjections and haunting melodic fragments. The piano’s resonance and decay is used to great effect – elusive and meditative in Ruins (1984) ‘Calm’, or declamatory and insistent in ‘Quick March’. In the last movement of Ruins, Finch takes the circling fragment from ‘Die Krähe’ from Schubert’s Winterreise to create his own Winter’s journey – a piece inspired by a gloomy day walking around an old castle on the Rhine, whose spare instrumentation and spooling melodies reflect the desolation of Schubert’s winter traveler. Other pieces on the disc have some kind of relation to a particular place: ‘Fantasy on a Russian Folk Song’ emerged out of the North Wales coastal town of Pwllheli – “practically the whole of the wildly ecstatic final section came to me while walking on the beach during a fierce gale” (DF). I am familiar with this part of North Wales, having holidayed there frequently as a child, and for me the music expresses the rugged, landscape, long empty beaches and changeable weather.

The three ‘Chorales’ on the disc reference the Lutheran Chorale tradition of J S Bach and Cesar Franck, and utilise the piano’s unique nuance and decay. Fragmentary, terse, and introspective, they express in their briefness a profound sense of contemplation, solitude and lamentation. It is the restraint in this music that makes it particularly arresting.

The launch of Inner Landscapes is on Monday 20 June at The Forge, Camden. Drinks from 7pm, performance at 7.30 to include selections from the CD and improvisations by Douglas Finch. Further information and tickets

Inner Landscapes is available from Prima Facie Records. CD notes by Douglas Finch and Aleksander Szram

Meet the Artist……Douglas Finch