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NOVEMBER PROGRAM - FUMI NAKAYAMA
DEVELOPING PIANO SKILLS WITH THE DALCROZE METHOD
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November 20, 9:45 AM
Rolling Meadows Library/Zoom
Please join us in clothes you feel comfortable moving in! We will be moving around for most of the class. If you can, bring dance shoes (e.g., leather or canvas ballet/jazz shoes) — if you don’t have any, a similar pair of soft-soled shoes or bare feet will work just as well. Also, it would be nice if people can bring some short piece or a section of a piece, which is problematic, to play.
Music-making requires our fingers, wrists, arms, and our entire bodies engaged to play a way that reflects your mind, how you want to play, and how you want to express the music. But, do we always practice with our entire bodies? Are we aware of how we are using our bodies when we play? In general, we tend to focus on our finger movements in isolation as we practice etudes or other technical exercises. Jaques-Dalcroze developed a method of music education that focuses on facilitating students’ instinctive movement-based responses to music. When we hear music, how can we convey the dynamics, tonal qualities, melodies, etc. through our bodily gestures? We might rise up on our toes when the melody rises in pitch or punctuate the accents with sharp punching motions. We may respond to swinging rhythms by moving side to side, or swinging our arms back and forth. By learning how to move our entire bodies to music efficiently and expressively, drawing upon Dalcroze principles and techniques, we can allow our bodily movements to inform how we play melodious lines — to make dramatic contrasts in performance, create a variety of tone colors utilizing finger touches and gestures, and, most importantly, perform with ease.
Fumi Nishikiori-Nakayama earned her Bachelor of Music in Piano and Harpsichord degree from the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University, and Master of Music in Piano and Early Music/Harpsichord from Indiana University, where she was the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Rudolph Ganz Memorial Award, and Willi Apel Scholarship. She has studied piano with Ludmila Lazar, Shigeo Neriki, harpsichord with David Schrader, Elisabeth Wright, fortepiano with Elizabeth Wright and Kenneth Drake, chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky, early chamber music with Stanley Ritchie, and conducting with Thomas Baldner and Imre Pallo.
As a conductor, she has conducted Indiana University Symphony Orchestra, IU Ad-hoc Orchestra, IU Opera Workshops. Her love for vocal music and theater led her to remain as one of the opera coaches for Indiana University Opera Theater for 6 years.
Currently Ms. Nishikiori is an adjunct faculty member of the Carthage Music Department and the UW-Parkside. She has received the Dalcroze Certification from Juilliard School Dalcroze Institute, and the Dalcroze license from Dalcroze School of Music and Movement, Dallas, Texas, where she currently serves on the teaching faculty. She often gives demonstrations and lectures to music teachers and students in the Midwest. She frequently collaborates performing music as a pianist, as well as a harpsichordist, with greater Milwaukee and Chicago area artists.
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NEW MEMBER SPOTLIGHT - MATTHEW NALL | |
Matthew Nall is a new member based in Arlington Heights. He previously taught lessons for 10 years in the Springfield, Illinois area where his students ranged from kindergarteners, to high school seniors, to grandparents. Although new to NWSMTA, he has been an MTNA member since 2014 when he attended the MTNA National Conference in Chicago, an experience he considers a turning point in his career. Matthew is looking forward to meeting fellow members, offering performance opportunities to students, and growing his studio.
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NEW MEMBER SPOTLIGHT - LEAH KANG | |
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Pianist Leah Kang is a musician of diverse interests who received degrees in biology and public health at UCLA prior to pursuing professional studies in music. She has performed in the United States, Germany, Austria, Canada, France, Czech Republic, and has been featured as a soloist with the Antelope Valley Symphony Orchestra, Tehachapi Symphony Orchestra, and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra. Leah has been awarded prizes in the American Prize Competition for Piano Performance (professional division) and the International Siegfried Weishaupt Piano Competition, with her performance as the second prize winner broadcast on SWR2 of Germany.
As a two-time recipient of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) research fellowship, Leah spent her dissertation years as a visiting scholar at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. Her research explores arrangements of Beethoven’s works created by his close contemporaries. She premiered rare chamber music arrangements of Beethoven’s overtures in the US and has presented aspects of her research at international conferences such as “Beethoven-Perspektiven” (Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, Germany), “Beethoven 2020: Analytical and Performative Perspectives” (Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory, Amsterdam, Netherlands), and the World Piano Conference (Novi Sad, Serbia).
Equally passionate about teaching, Leah has served on the music faculties of Antelope Valley College and Citrus College, as Associate Instructor of Music Theory at Indiana University Bloomington, and as a piano instructor for the School of Music and Division of Continuing Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also frequently invited as an adjudicator for competitions and auditions throughout California and Wisconsin.
Leah earned her Master of Music and Performer Diploma in Piano Performance from Indiana University under the tutelage of Arnaldo Cohen and her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Christopher Taylor. For more information, please visit: https://www.leahkang.com
Upcoming Concert in Chicago: https://classicalmusicchicago.org/events/leah-kang-piano
November 29, 2023 @ 12:15 PM - Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, Chicago – 55 E. Wacker Drive
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COLLABORATIVE PIANIST NEEDED | |
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I am looking for a collaborative pianist who is classically trained and experienced in church music and accompanying professional singers and ensembles.
The church is Grace Anglican Fellowship www.graceanglicanfellowship.org
991 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045 across the street from the Lake Forest Metra stop, Milwaukee North.
Our Sunday call is 10:15 a.m. for a 10:30 service ending around noon. There is NO midweek rehearsal. You receive the choir anthems and hymns via email and we run through them before the service begins.
Pay: $150/service (more for special services: Lessons and Carols, Holy Week, etc.)
You will be responsible for the typical Anglican service music (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei), congregational hymns, prelude, postlude and choral anthems.
Please send an audio recording or a resume to
Gayle Heatherington at gayleheatherington@gmail.com.
Gayle Heatherington
847 244-2302 (h) 224-383-4164 (c)
Treasurer and Director of Music Ministries, Grace Anglican Fellowship
www.graceanglicanfellowship.org
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PIANIST NEEDED FOR PROTESTANT WORSHIP SERVICE ON DECEMBER 3RD | |
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I am a Lutheran clergyman and I organize a Protestant service on the first Sunday of every month for the residents of Church Creek senior living close to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. Between 25 and 30 residents attend.
Two weeks ago our pianist, a resident of Church Creek, fell and broke her leg and will be unable to play the piano on December 3.
Pianist needed for Protestant worship service on Sunday, December 3, at Church Creek senior living residence, 1250 W. Central Rd., Arlington Heights, from 10-11:30 a.m. $75. Please contact Pr. Les Weber at 224-805-0330 or l-jweber@sbcglobal.net
Thank you for your help.
Les Weber
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Dear NWSMTA members,
My wish for all of you is to have music fill your heart all your lives. I suggest you check out “Lang Lang Plays Disney,” on the Disney+ channel. If you don’t get the Disney+ channel, find a student who will invite you to her house. Or check with your local library in a few months. The performance was held at the Royal Albert Hall. The venue is timeless and magical, because of its historic setting and grandeur.
Lang Lang is a rock star to many young people interested in music. As a six year old boy he had to practice music six hours a day. He was allowed to watch television thirty minutes a day. He watched Disney cartoons. In 2021, with the birth of his son, he began renewing his interest in Disney music. Like classical music Disney has a similar variety of styles and touches our hearts. With classical music we try to play the music the same way for hundreds of years, but Disney music has to be different and new every time, or no one is interested.
Since music is no longer in many public schools, he devotes much of his time encouraging young people to have the experience of music. He feels music should be offered to everyone. It is the most fair of all art forms.
In the concert film, Lang Lang watches a Mickey Mouse cartoon playing the piano (Rachmaninoff). He saw Mickey in a physical struggle with the piano. Musicians sometimes have a love/hate relationship with it. I know I have experienced it.
Deborah Lynch
Newsletter Editor
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Northwest Suburban Music Teachers Association | https://www.nwsmta.org | | | | |
