Welcome to Creativity at the Piano!
This page will link to all upcoming sessions and locations for Creativity at the Piano Workshops. The course is intended for both students and teachers who would like to explore their own creativity, learn new ways of approaching the instrument and identify flexible, innovative strategies to add to their own practice - performing or teaching!
Visit these links:
Vienna - for additional information including logistics, policies, fees and payment options.
Vienna 2025 - for next year’s schedule
Professional Development - if you are a teacher interested in attending the course
Excursions - for ideas on how to spend your extra time during the course
Are you interested but also wondering: What does the course involve? What are we going to do? The following video from the first course is an excellent example of how we worked during the week. All sessions were based on student interests and also on the teacher’s observations as to what a new and unfamiliar perspective might be.
Kathryn Woodard’s description: In this session I introduced the student to a short work by David Gorton, Prelude after D'Anglebert, after realizing she might benefit from its free rhythmic notation and also its more atonal sound. So often we drill beats and subdivisions into students but don't allow them rhythmic freedom while still looking at notation. I noticed her prepared repertoire had a bit of a rigid rhythmic feel, which we addressed in a few ways. The following day I thought this could be an interesting piece to explore. She had already demonstrated a willingness to experiment with different sonorities in our improv sessions, so this piece allowed her to imagine what the composer may have intended with some strident chords and unique rhythms - ‘dance poses’ and ‘raindrops’ in her own words! Her interpretations were going so well that I invited her to offer her own improvisational response. She performed both Gorton’s Prelude and an improvisation at our mid-week recital.
Then later in the week when we were trying out historical instruments at MusikQuartier (harpsichord and Hammerklavier!), I had the same student read a prelude from one of Jean-Henri d’Anglebert’s Suites - the actual inspiration for Gorton’s piece because these preludes are written without meter or barlines in free rhythmic notation.
It really became on of those ‘full circle’ moments: while exploring our own creativity, we were considering new works and those that provided historical context.
Learn more about why I started this course below, and visit the course information page - Vienna - for more details. The next course is August 5-9, 2024! Information for teacher sessions in August also available here.
Would you like to host a day or week-long workshop? Contact us here!