For several months now, I have enjoyed teaching piano lessons here in Saint Paul, mostly to complete beginners. It has been profoundly rewarding to see the creativity, enthusiasm, and open-mindedness of these young people in their explorations of the piano. It is important to me to expose students to a variety of musical styles, develop their creativity and listening skills through improvisation and composition exercises, and do what I can to show them that classical music is alive and open to all of them.
While there are countless composers of all stripes creating beautiful and imaginative work today, very little contemporary concert music is written for beginner to intermediate musicians, especially in solo instrumental repertoire. To do my part to rectify this, I hope to compose a collection of short piano pieces which are memorable, compelling, diverse in their sound, and written at appropriate and progressive levels for students.
To support this endeavor, I am seeking piano teachers (or students, or anyone interested!) to join a commission consortium to support the creation of these pieces. A commission consortium is a group of people who come together to cost share a new music commission, allowing the composer to receive support for their work while keeping the project affordable for all commissioners.
The details are as follows:
The consortium will commission a collection of ten pieces, all of which will be available for the members to use for themselves and their students in perpetuity.
The collection will contain two primer level student-teacher four hand duets, and one piece each at levels 1 through 8, as outlined by the Pianist’s Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature.
The commission fee is $50 per consortium participant.
A minimum of ten consortium participants will be needed to execute the project.
For each additional participant over ten people, I will write one additional piece. Members will be able to vote on the technical level of any additional pieces.
Consortium members will be asked to sign a written agreement upon declaring their intent to participate. The $50 fee will be payable once the minimum amount of consortium members is reached.
Pieces will be due to the consortium members six months after the minimum number of participants is reached and fees are payable.
Pieces will be made available to the consortium members via pdf download. Members will be able to print as many copies as they like for use by them and their students.
The collection will be made available for purchase to the public, both as individual pieces and as a complete collection, one year after it is made available to consortium members. The names of the consortium members will appear in all editions of the pieces, thanking them for their support.
Consortium members will continue to be able to print copies of the works for use by them and their students free of charge in perpetuity.
To my fellow piano teachers: I hope you’ll consider joining me in the creation of vibrant new works for beginner and intermediate pianists! Contact me to inquire further.