General Meeting Programs
Nan Childress Orchard - “Piano Music of Tomas Svoboda: Repertoire for Teaching The Beginner through Advanced Student”
Juliana Osinchuk - “Beginning to Teach French Keyboard Literature”
Stuart Isacoff - “Classical-Jazz Connections ”
Joseph Kalichstein - “Teachers’ Master Class ”
David Witten - “Italian Piano Music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco”
Travel to Italy with David Witten at the May general meeting as he explores the music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968).
After Castelnuovo-Tedesco fled the Fascist regime in Italy in 1938, he settled in Hollywood and became a prolific film composer. In fact, his students include such well-known composers as Henry Mancini, John Williams, and André Previn. While still living in Italy, he wrote a number of beautiful piano works. Dr. Witten’s presentation will focus on a suite called Piedigrotta, named for an area of Naples, Italy.
David Witten, one of MEA’s outstanding members, received his early training at Peabody Conservatory and the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University led to a degree in Psychology. Later graduating with high honors from Boston University, he earned the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance. His most influential teachers have been Reynaldo Reyes, Walter Hautzig, Leo Smit, and Dorothy Taubman. After twenty years as an active recitalist, chamber music pianist and teacher in the Boston area, Dr. Witten accepted a position at Montclair State University, where he is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies.
Eduardus Halim - “Young Artists’ Master
Class
”
Come hear talented students perform at the final meeting of the 2007-08 year. Eduardus Halim, a distinguished member of the Artist Faculty at New York University, will be our master teacher at this Young Artists’ Master Class.
Born in Indonesia to Chinese parents, Mr. Halim studied violin, piano and Javanese dancing at an early age. His training as a pianist is quite extraordinary. Under the tutelage of the Hungarian teacher, Alfonse Becalel, he performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the age of eleven. He continued his studies under Stephen Michael Sulungan, then Sascha Gorodnitzky and Rudolph Firkusny of The Juilliard School. An encounter with Harold C. Schonberg, New York Times music critic, led Mr. Halim to study with Vladimir Horowitz. This time with Horowitz is chronicled in Schonberg’s Horowitz, His Life and Music.
He has received awards and honors from the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Avery Fisher Career Grant. His recordings include Presenting Eduardus Halim: A Program of Piano Transcriptions, and discs of Chopin and Granados. Eduardus Halim's distinctive approach to the piano is matched by a charismatic personality. He has been profiled by The New York Times (Arts & Leisure), The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Piano Quarterly and Clavier.