Dear Members,
Happy spring!
In January, we kicked off a long series of student concerts with the Junior I and II student recitals, followed by the Intermediate I and II, then Composition/Jazz and Pop/20th-21st Century recitals. This month, we had the Senior recitals. Congratulations to our wonderful student performers and many thanks to all of the teachers, parents, and recital chairs. See below for the winners of the Nancy Oliva Awards, Wanda Paik Awards, and Alice Procter Award. Congratulations to the winners and their teachers! In the spring, we look forward to the Ensemble Recital, Adult Recital, Middle School Competition, and High School Competition.
We also enjoyed many outstanding speakers at our speaker series events. In January, the members of the NEPTA Editions Committee shared an engaging and informative session on selections from piano repertoire. Miriam Gargarian introduced us to music by Canadian composers, Sivan Etedgee performed piano works by John Cage, and Sandra Rosenblum lectured on composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. In February, guest speaker Jenny Tang spoke on "A Coincidence of Chaos and Order: Works of Ligeti, Barber and Schumann" and shared a performance. It was inspiring to hear her views.
This month we had the NEPTA Members' Recital at M. Steinert & Sons in South Boston. Our fellow members shared an evening of beautiful music. Thanks to performers Deborah Yardley Beers, Elena Drabkin, Nina Grimaldi, Donna Gross Javel, Uyen Sa Nguyen, Natacha Rist, Shizue Sano, Tatyana Shrago, and Ranko Konishi-Houston. Many thanks to Ellie Perrone and Irina Baghdasaryan for organizing the recital and reception, and as always, we are very grateful to M. Steinert & Sons for letting us hold our events in their beautiful venue.
Please plan to join us for our upcoming spring events!
On Monday, March, 25th, Norman Krieger will speak on "Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety and Beyond."
On Monday, April 8th, the Irene S. Golan Teachers' Exchange, held at the Wellesley Library, will provide an open discussion for teachers to share and learn from each other. This meeting will focus on the MTNA conference and the Royal Conservatory of Music with a discussion led Lydia Reed-Guertin, Betty Reed, and Nina Grimaldi. Betty and Nina are the 2018 Susan B. Demb Teacher Enrichment Grant recipients, and they will give a summary of the 2019 MTNA Conference, which they attended in March. Lydia will share her expertise as a Certified Adjudicator for the Royal Conservatory of Music and lead a discussion on their philosophy and curriculum. Please bring your thoughts, suggestions and questions around these topics.
On April 22nd, we will have our Student Master Class with Gilles Vonsattel. Our final meeting for the season will be on Monday, May 20th. We will convene with a brief meeting, followed by the student awards recital and our annual luncheon. I hope you will join me in concluding this wonderful season as we celebrate by hearing our competition winners' performances, and reflect on how meaningful this organization is for our students and for us as piano teachers.
I also want to share a very exciting update - our dedicated member, Sue Demb, has been working to improve the NEPTA website. You can expect an easier-to-navigate user-friendly website for next season. This will be a great step forward in our current, digital world. Many thanks to Sue! Please be assured that you won't experience any interruption using the website during the changes.
As of May, I will be finishing my term as President, and this will be my last newsletter to you. I thank you all for letting me serve as NEPTA President. It has been a great honor. I learned so much, and I have met so many dedicated people. Many of you have become friends and confidants that I will treasure forever.
Many thanks to the Board members, Caroline Ly Germeys, Natacha Rist, Janice Spillane, Irina Baghdasaryan, Tong Liu, Ellie Perrone, Christina Guibas, Valerie Ross, Jia Shi, Eric Bowman-Wozencraft, Robin Cho, Shizue Sano, and most of all to Diana Tetzlaff, Vice President.
Also thank you to all the dedicated volunteers who helped me run this organization smoothly. This list is in alphabetical order - Janet Ainsworth, Diane Anderson, Elaine Rombola Aveni, Deborah Yardley Beers, Janna Bruene, Colleen Campbell, Carol Chaffee, Sivan Etedgee, Robert Finley, Niva Fried, Miriam Gargarian, Irina Gelman, Nina Grimaldi, Lydia Reed-Guertin, Natalia Harlap, Catherine Costello Hirata, Dianne Impallaria, Donna Gross Javel, Marianne Jensen, Barbara Jones, Karin Kydland, Elizabeth Landman, Fan Li, Selma Ramic, Cindy Null, Betty Reed, Kathryn Rosenbach, Tanya Schwartzman, Lyubov Shlain, and Janice Zaganjori.
Lastly, thank you to all the NEPTA members! Without you, this organization would not exist. Please remember to renew your 2019-2020 Annual Dues before May 31, 2019.
I hope to see many of you at this season's remaining meetings, especially, the Annual Meeting.
With gratitude and warm wishes,
Ranko Konishi-Houston
President