Recommended Reading and Listening

Spread the word about these great books from our fellow music educators!

Deborah rambo sinn

Playing Beyond the Notes: A Pianist's Guide to Musical Interpretation demystifies the complex concepts of musical interpretation in Western tonal piano music by boiling it down to basic principles in an accessible writing style. Author and veteran piano instructor Deborah Rambo Sinn tackles a different interpretive principle, explaining clearly, for example, how to play effective ornaments and rubatos. As a whole, the book helps pianists understand concrete ways to apply interpretive concepts to their own playing and gives teachers practical ways to teach interpretation to their students. The book is illustrated with over 200 repertoire excerpts and supplemented by a companion website with over 100 audio recordings. Playing Beyond the Notes is essential reading for all performing pianists, independent piano teachers, and piano pedagogy students.

Jeremy siskind

(Educational Piano Library). Duets are double the fun with these jazzed-up gems. Primo and Secondo parts are equal in difficulty and perfect for intermediate-level students. Also excellent for themed recitals! Titles: Get Smart * Inspector Clouseau Theme * Inspector Gadget * James Bond Theme * Mission: Impossible Theme * The Pink Panther * Secret Agent Man * Soul Bossa Nova.

Christopher Hahn and Karen Beres

This textbook provides a unique resource to promote interest in and awareness of the available body of captivating concerto literature. It focuses on works suitable for pianists at the intermediate level, highlighting musically satisfying compositions from early Baroque masterworks through contemporary concertos written by today's best pedagogical composers. The book is arranged alphabetically by composer, with descriptions detailing information about publishers, tempo, key, instrumentation, and technical and musical content. The authors discuss the challenges and stylistic features of each selection and grade each movement using the 10-level grading system from Jane Magrath's The Pianist's Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature, a model for the textbook. This is an essential reference work for those interested in student concertos.

Karen Beres teaches the undergraduate group piano classes and piano pedagogy class at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she serves as Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Academic Affairs for the School of Music.
Christopher Hahn is professor of piano at the University of Montana where he teaches applied piano and piano pedagogy at the undergraduate and graduate level. Beres and Hahn have been presenting innovative programs of duet and two-piano repertoire as the CanAm Piano Duo since 2002.

Nicholas Phillips

Described by the New York Times as a ''talented and entrepreneurial pianist'' and an ''able and persuasive advocate'' of new music, Nicholas Phillips' playing has been praised for its ''bejeweled accuracy'' (Fanfare) and as ''razor-sharp yet wonderfully spirited'' (American Record Guide).He is active as a soloist and collaborative artist, having performed all across the United States, as well as Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa. Phillips is an active recording artist and champion of living composers, having released four previous CDs devoted to contemporary music, including Portals and Passages (Albany Records, 2011), American Vernacular: New Music for Solo Piano (New Focus Recordings, 2014) and Impressions (Blue Griffin Recordings, 2016).

John Salmon

The featured work on this recording, Ansel Adams: America, was originally an orchestral piece co-composed by Dave Brubeck and his son Chris. The piano version was derived both from Dave Brubeck's original piano score as well as the finished orchestral score. Pianist John Salmon, a long-time champion of Dave Brubeck's music as well as his friend, offers the world premiere recording of this work. In Chris Brubeck's words, his father had a friend in John Salmon "with the breadth of knowledge and skill in both classical literature and jazz to take on my father's piano music. John's exquisite and spirited playing brought my father so much pleasure over the length of a long and rich relationship that lasted decades." On the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Salmon has distinguished himself on four continents as a performer, lecturer and educator.