CD Recommendations - Dichterliebe, Under the Pepper Tree

Dichterliebe
Yoosin Park – Cello
Florian Uhlig – Piano
available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music

Dichterliebe on cello? Works surprisingly well actually. For her debut album, South Korean cellist Yoosin Park made a convincing argument for song cycles to be performed on strings more often. The secret ingredient here is her gorgeously pure cello ‘voice’ surprisingly very subtle vibrato approach. Her legato is also eerily effortless; hers is one of the cleanest playing I’ve heard of modern cellists. Every song in the cycle was a joy to listen to from start to the end.

Other accompanying pieces in the album are equally competent as well. I’ve really enjoyed her sensitive rendition of Schumann’s Op.102 a lot as well, the second one in the set “Langsam” was a standout. Florian Uhlig proved to be an equal musical partner, though unfortunately his playing occasionally overpowered Park’s in livelier tracks. But overall, a solid debut and worth a listen.

Under the Pepper Tree
Sara Watkins - Vocal
available on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music

The latest album from contemporary bluegrass singer Sara Watkins is a wonderfully conceived children’s album. Rather than consisting mostly of random mix of previously released singles, the album is intended to be listened from start to the end with many of the songs flowing seamlessly from one to another. Its gentle lullaby-like nature makes it perfect for late night listening.

The singing throughout was exceptional. Standards such “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “Moon River” are beautifully rendered and faithful to the originals. The standout for me though was an original song “Night Singing”. The outstanding orchestral and acoustic accompaniments are further icing on the cake.

Comments

My Student Did Not Practice Again

My Student Did Not Practice Again I am sure the sight of a student who did not practice again was not unfamiliar to many of us teachers. I understand that it is frustrating and could suck the joy of teaching; I do know teachers who threw in the towel because of this. I must admit that it was a sore point at one point of my teaching career, but I decided to adopt a more positive approach because I genuinely wanted all my students to have a positive learning experience. Let me share with you a couple of pointers that hopefully could provide you with better solutions to this issue. · Empathize and diagnose It might be an instinct for many of us to immediately ask “Why didn’t you practice?” in a disapproving tone when faced with a non-practicing student. We might even launch into a tirade chiding student or institute a penalty. Perhaps naively we think that the student would feel bad for disappointing us. But trust me on this, those actions are going to have opposite the effects

Returning to Performing as Adult Advanced Pianist – Part 1 – Addressing Tension and Technical Issues I think we all can agree that as a piano teacher that the benefit of maintaining a practicing and performing routine is immeasurable. But juggling this with long hours of teaching, family life, and other adult commitments is by no means easy. But sadly, and understandably, the number of teachers and adults who no longer practice and perform far outnumber those who do. If you would like to take that first step to start performing again, read on. I’m sure you were at one point of your younger life were a competent performer; any teachers who had studied for formal music qualifications had to be. You might even at one point be performing fiendishly difficult pieces like Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes or even piano concertos. You decided to start practicing again, resuming from the point where you stopped. And it soon dawned upon you that you could not move as agile as you used to, but

Assigning Repertoire - The Balanced Approach

Assigning Repertoire - The Balanced Approach For the inaugural post of this blog, I am going to write about a topic that I feel is integral in piano teaching but strangely rarely discussed even in many pedagogical literatures. When it comes to choosing and repertoire for students, teachers often do this in linear fashion. Meaning, the next pieces a student learn would be incrementally more difficult than the current ones. So, for example, once a Grade 4 student completed Grade 4, they would move on the Grade 5 and only work on pieces set for Grade 5. Many teachers I know of follow this system, and to them it seems to be logical and fuss-free. But is it really? Consider that assigning repertoire this way means students would most likely be working only on pieces that are challenging for them. Motivated students might relish the challenge, but for majority of average students this might mean increasingly slow and frustrating progress that would gradually erode motivation. In addi

Charles Wu's Piano Studio Blog

Search This Blog