Eastside MTA
Monthly Programs & Workshops
Monthly programs will be held in person at Newport Covenant Church for the 2023-2024 school year. Workshops will be held from 10:30 – 12:30, program speakers will be held from 10:30 – 11:30.
All Eastside MTA Workshops for are free of charge to EMTA members though the Dorothy Woodcock grant. Public is welcome to attend. Registration is required. The fee for the Workshops to nonmembers is $20 per workshop with the option to purchase a workshop pass for any three for $50.
2023-2024 Season
Eastside MTA Monthly Programs are presented each month by knowledgeable speakers at the general meetings.
Our first meeting of the new academic year. This is a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with your fellow colleagues. This will also be the time for you to learn about the coming events for the year and pick up your yearbook.
Luncheon will be provided.
Eliana Yi: Program Speaker
Title: “Within My Reach: An introduction to alternatively-sized keyboards and how they help create a more diverse and inclusive piano world”
Eliana Yi has been performing and practicing on a custom-made keyboard that has keys 7/8 the width of a conventional keyboard. This allows her to access the piano repertoire that she would normally struggle to play due to her small hand size. In this program, she will share information about these keyboards and talk about the growing movement of pianists worldwide who have pianos like hers.
Steven Spooner: Workshop
10AM – Noon
Title: “Developing Style in Romantic Piano Music”
This interactive workshop examines the subtle style differences, teaching strategies, and interpretational concerns between the major composers of Romanticism and post-Romanticism, including Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions about specific pieces and everyone will be provided a handout on recommended recordings.
ONLINE – TBA
Judith Schoepflin: ONLINE Workshop
10:30AM – 12:30PM
Title: “Women Composers and Their Music: A Perspective”
Judith Cohen: Program Speaker
Title: “Bartok, Prokofiev and Ginastera: Sparkling gems for the contemporary student”
Speaker: Ross Salvosa, Workshop
Topic 1: “The Inherent Language of Touch”
This lecture will discuss how the different types of legatos and staccatos naturally convey the language of expression within the context of pianism.
Topic 2: ”Breaking Free from Debussy’s Shackles”
This lecture will survey the gamelan inspired music of Filipino composers Lucio San Pedro, Ramon Tapales, and Antonio Molina as well as the cultural appropriation of Southeast Asian gamelan music by Debussy.
Eastside MTA workshops
Eastside MTA
Eastside MTA Workshops are presented to provide teachers an opportunity for continuing education. Workshops will be both in person and online.
Eliana Yi
Eliana Yi is a private teacher in the Eastside area. She is known for fostering a love for music and piano in her students and her approach toward healthy piano playing. She performs regularly as a solo artist, both live and recorded, on her 5.5″ keyboard, a custom-made piano designed for smaller hands.
Eliana recently graduated from her position as a teaching fellow at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. During her time at SMU, she studied Piano Pedagogy and Performance where she took private instruction with Dr. Carol Leone and teaching supervision with Dr. Cathy Lysinger. She was a recipient of the Paul von Katwijk prize and Roy and Sue Johnson Award for Piano Pedagogy.
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Eliana had an active childhood playing cello and piano in chamber groups, orchestras, and debuting as a recitalist. She has performed throughout Texas and Washington, and in Germany. In 2019, she presented her research on alternatively sized keyboards at the MTNA Piano Pedagogy Collegiate Symposium in Indiana and her research on teaching small handed students at the 2021 NCKP Convention. She is currently a team member and performer for the International Stretto Piano Festivals, a Director for the Crescendo Music Competition, a speaker for Pianists for Alternatively-Sized Keyboards (PASK), and an adjudicator for her local area.
Steven Spooner
At the very forefront of American pianists, critics and audiences have unanimously hailed the distinctive and compelling performances of pianist Steven Spooner. “A pianist in the tradition that many believe died with the likes of Horowitz, Arrau, Bolet, Cziffra, and Wild. His talent, to my ears, is easily the equal of most major pianists of today and far superior to a large number of those most exciting and dynamic pianists of their generation” (Fanfare). “Such a breadth and variety of difficult pieces made me wonder at first if this recording was a hoax. But, no, Steven Spooner is the real deal, a pianist of apparently limitless raw technique that’s almost note perfect.” (American Record Guide). Spooner has been engaged at many of the world’s most prestigious
venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Great Hall of the Liszt Academy (Budapest), Salle Cortot (Paris), and Shanghai Concert Hall, among many others as soloist with orchestra and recitalist. During the past seasons he has daringly reinvented the solo recital by allowing audiences to vote on the spot for one of several programs and like golden- age pianists, his concerts often feature his own compositions and virtuoso transcriptions.
Spooner is a prizewinner at all seven international piano competitions he entered and top prizewinner at the Hilton Head International Piano Competition and First Prize and recipient of the Niekamp Career Grant as most outstanding pianist in French music at the Paris Conservatory. In 2008, he was awarded the Ivory Classics Foundation Prize that enabled him to study Liszt with the legendary virtuoso, Earl Wild. Following this, Spooner underwent a period of serious self-study and emerged as one of the most comprehensively equipped pianists of our time embracing a gargantuan repertoire of solo works and concerti by a host of diverse composers.
Spooner has released more than 30 recordings on Naxos, A Life of Music, and other record labels including a monumental project of 16 albums honoring his heroes called Dedications. His latest 10-volume recording project, Aspects of Liszt, exploring the many facets of the Liszt repertoire, will be released in 2022.
Steven Spooner is Professor of Piano on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory, and he has studied at the Tbilisi Conservatory, Moscow Conservatory, and Indiana University.
Spooner has served on the faculty of many of the most prestigious summer festivals and is increasingly in demand for his insightful masterclasses at leading conservatories across the globe. He is Artistic Director of the Chicago International Competition and Festival and often serves on juries of international competitions. A dedicated and caring teacher of students from around the world, he has formed winners of multiple prizes at important international competitions. Steven Spooner is a Steinway Artist.
Judith Schoepflin
Judith Schoepflin, Nationally Certified Teacher of Music, is director of keyboard studies at Whitworth University, in Spokane. A native of Bremerton, Wash., she holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance and vocal performance from the University of Idaho. As a University of Idaho student, she was a recipient of the Theodore Presser Award and the Phi Kappa Phi Award for outstanding musical and academic achievement. She went on to become a doctoral fellow and a student of Richard Cass and Joseph Banowetz at the University of North Texas, where she earned her doctorate in piano performance.
Active as both a solo and chamber music performer, Schoepflin has performed with numerous orchestras in the Northwest and Canada, and she regularly performs on Spokane’s National Public Radio station. As a member of the Mühlfeld Trio, she performed to critical acclaim in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Mexico. This group
recorded for Laurel Records and Irish National Radio and was featured on United Airlines in-flight listening. The trio also performed at Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) conferences in Washington, D.C.; Portland, OR; and Miami, FL.
Regionally, Schoepflin is a regular workshop presenter who frequently performs or presents at Washington State Music Teacher (WSMTA) conferences. She serves as liaison and host of many WSMTA State and Northwest Divisional MTNA competitions and is area coordinator for the National Guild of Piano Teacher Auditions. She is also active as a master clinician and adjudicator for various state and regional competitions that include those for WSMTA and MTNA in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Utah. In 2013, she was the recipient of the Music Teachers National Association Foundation Fellow Award.
While a faculty member at Washington State University, Schoepflin was named “Woman of the Year in the Arts” for her contribution to women’s studies through her research and performance of the work of women composers. She has actively promoted music by women through lectures and recitals, and she is founder and director of Whitworth University’s series, Women Composers: The Untapped Source. This program has presented music by more than 140 women from around the globe, and it includes works from the ninth century to the present, ranging from piano to full symphonic band.
Judith Cohen
Judith Cohen began piano studies at the age of five with Ruth Schein, and continued at the Chicago Musical College with Saul Dorfman until the age of eighteen. She completed graduate studies with Randolph Hokanson at the University of Washington, and has performed in the public masterclasses of Aldo Ciccolini, Alexis Weissenberg, Daniel Pollack and Murray Perahia.
Ms Cohen made her European recital debut in 2002, performing two solo recitals in Budapest, Hungary, and since then has returned three times for concert tours of Hungary. She has performed solo recitals in Mexico, under the sponsorship of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Critic Robert Somerlott of the Mexico City News hailed her as “an artist of unusual talent who captivated the audience with both her musicianship and stage presence.” She has performed solo and chamber music recitals throughout the Pacific Northwest, in Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Kentucky and
Texas. She has also been presented in solo recitals by the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in both Chicago and Los Angeles, and by the Florence Conservatory of Music in Italy.
Ms Cohen is the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Governor’s Chamber Music Series in Olympia, Washington, and the pianist in the acclaimed TangleTown Trio. She has performed and toured with Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater as piano soloist between 2009-2016, with music of Erwin Schulhoff, Robert Schumann and Andy Tierstein. Her discography includes recordings on the Pear Records , Capstone and Byzantium labels. In a 2012 review of two of these recordings, Radu Lelatiu of Fanfare Magazine reported, “She is without doubt a first- rate artist…if you have ever wondered how Wilhelm Kempff might have sounded playing Prokofiev, here is your chance to find out.”
In 2005 Ms Cohen received the honor of becoming a Steinway Artist. She enjoys the distinction of being part of this elite society of pianists.
Program | Monday, February 27th, 2023: 10:30AM-11:30AM
Judith Cohen
Judith Cohen began piano studies at the age of five with Ruth Schein, and continued at the Chicago Musical College with Saul Dorfman until the age of eighteen. She completed graduate studies with Randolph Hokanson at the University of Washington, and has performed in the public masterclasses of Aldo Ciccolini, Alexis Weissenberg, Daniel Pollack and Murray Perahia.Ms Cohen made her European recital debut in 2002, performing two solo recitals in Budapest, Hungary, and since then has returned three times for concert tours of Hungary. She has performed solo recitals in Mexico, under the sponsorship of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Critic Robert Somerlott of the Mexico City News hailed her as “an artist of unusual talent who captivated the audience with both her musicianship and stage presence.” She has performed solo and chamber music recitals throughout the Pacific Northwest, in Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Kentucky and Texas.
She has also been presented in solo recitals by the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in both Chicago and Los Angeles, and by the Florence Conservatory of Music in Italy.Ms Cohen is the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Governor’s Chamber Music Series in Olympia, Washington,and the pianist in the acclaimed TangleTown Trio. She has performed and toured with Donald Byrd’s SpectrumDance Theater as piano soloist between 2009-2016, with music of Erwin Schulhoff, Robert Schumann and AndyTierstein. Her discography includes recordings on the Pear Records , Capstone and Byzantium labels. In a 2012review of two of these recordings, Radu Lelatiu of Fanfare Magazine reported, “She is without doubt a first-rateartist…if you have ever wondered how Wilhelm Kempff might have sounded playing Prokofiev, here is your chanceto find out.”
Eastside MTA workshops
REGISTRATION
All Eastside MTA Workshops for are free of charge to EMTA members though the Dorothy Woodcock grant. Public is welcome to attend. Registration is required. The fee for the Workshops to nonmembers is $20 per workshop with the option to purchase a workshop pass for all three for $50.
general info & inquiry
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