PIANO SUMMER SCHOOL - Key Persons
Andrew Eales has a well-established reputation as one of the leading piano educators in the United Kingdom.
Andrew is well known as a published composer and author. His compositions have appeared in the ABRSM piano grade syllabus and several other publications.
His book How to Practise Music is published by Hal Leonard, the world's leading and largest music publisher, and has received considerable critical acclaim.
His series of three music books The Graded Gillock appeared in 2022, and following their success he has more recently compiled Naoko Ikeda: The Graded Collection. He is currently working on further projects with Hal Leonard.
Andrew is an advocate for holistic, mindful approaches to music-making and an inquisitive, playful approach to teaching, learning and musical discovery. His mission is to help others find joy and fulfilment through playing the piano.
Through his work, Andrew has made significant contributions to the piano community, inspiring and guiding pianists and teachers around the world, encouraging others to embrace their creativity and pursue their musical aspirations.
Born in Surrey, UK in 1966, Andrew started piano lessons aged 9. Within a few months he was awarded a music scholarship to Oakham School. He later completed his schooling at Bedford Modern School, simultaneously taking up a place as a Junior Exhibitioner at the Guildhall School of Music in London.
Andrew read Music at the University of Birmingham where he gained his honours B.Mus degree and won the University's esteemed Roland Gregory Music Prize. While in Birmingham, Andrew studied harpsichord with David Ponsford, developing an interest in authentic historical performance practice.
Andrew went on to complete his postgraduate professional training at the Royal College of Music in London, where he took lessons with the internationally acclaimed harpsichord and fortepianist Robert Woolley, gaining his ARCM Diploma as well as a Certificate in Advanced Study in Early Music. He was also the winner of the Raymond Russell Harpsichord Prize. Andrew also studied piano for two years with the Hungarian concert pianist Joseph Weingarten, a former student of Dohnányi in Budapest. Joseph's profound and inspiring teaching had a huge impact on Andrew as a musician.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Piano and Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire
Douglas Finch is a Canadian pianist and composer, known for his innovative and imaginative
Ian Stephens is a composer and arranger of increasing renown, with a string of high-profile commissions from professional arts organisations over many years. His original music has been widely performed in the UK and further afield by ensembles including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Brodsky Quartet, Fitzwilliam Quartet, Choirs of King's College Cambridge and Salisbury Cathedral, and Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. His children's ballet Pinocchio, for Northern Ballet, opened in October 2021 and toured February-April 2022. We're Going on a Bear Hunt, his children's entertainment for narrator and orchestra, was performed by the RLPO, with Michael Rosen narrating, at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013 as part of the BBC Proms.
In his music Ian seeks to reconcile a wide variety of techniques within his own style, incorporating elements of both tonality and atonality, both rhythmic definition and free rhythm, and blending conventional notation and performance techniques with a more experimental approach. His aim is to write music with a sincere and heartfelt meaning, not shying away from the extremes. "Stephens' musical language is hallmarked by strong thematic ideas and driven by the power of bold rhythmic motifs and sonorous combinations of instruments or voices" (Andrew Stewart, BBC Proms programme, 2013).
Ian is a skilled and highly effective arranger in both directions, from small forces to large (e.g. piano to orchestra) and from large to small (e.g. orchestra to string quartet), as well as in creating bespoke string and orchestral arrangements for artists including OMD, Cate Le Bon, Ian Broudie, Boris Grebenshchikov, Black and Fish; he created all the orchestrations for ‘And In The End', a tour with the Bootleg Beatles and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (2019, 2022). See arrangements. In 2022 he collaborated with Bill Ryder-Jones on strings for a new version of 100% Endurance by Yard Act and Elton John. In 2023 he arranged strings for a new Yard Act album.
Jeremy Pike studied violin and piano at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music whilst taking composition lessons with Christopher Finzi, Bryan Kelly and Sir Lennox Berkeley. He was awarded a scholarship to study Music at King's College, Cambridge, in 1973, studying composition with Gordon Crosse. After a postgraduate year studying composition, with Paul Patterson, and conducting at the RAM he won a Polish government scholarship, enabling him to study with the celebrated composer Henryk Górecki at the Katowice Academy of Music.
In 1998 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for research into the application of new technology to the arts, based at Stanford University in the USA and at IRCAM in Paris. He has held the position of Director of Contemporary Music at Warwick University, subsequently joining the composition faculty of the RAM, where he directed the electro-acoustic music studios. He was made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1990 and gained a PhD from London University in 2000. He was appointed to the staff of Chetham's School of Music in 1989 where he is Head of Composition.
His extensive list of compositions comprises orchestral, chamber and vocal music, including Missa Brevis commissioned by Warwick University, a bassoon concerto for Graham Salvage & the RNCM New Ensemble and The Crossing Point, premièred by the City of London Sinfonia in 2005. His fifth string quartet was runner up for the prestigious Carl Maria von Weber International Composers' Competition in 1985. Recent performances of his music have included Processions for violin and piano, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from the Wigmore Hall, Praesagium and Aphelion, both broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from the Bridgewater Hall, Cascades for violin and harpsichord, premièred in Hong Kong with broadcasts on national radio RTHK4, as well as A Forsaken Garden and The Cat and the Moon commissioned for the 2017 and 2018 William Alwyn Festivals. He has arranged music for performance by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
CD recordings of his music include Three Pieces for Piano performed by Jonathan Middleton and recently broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Processions for violin and piano and Closed Circuit for clarinet, piano and live electronics. In 2020 Divine Art Records released The Cat and the Moon , performed by the soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers, recorderist John Turner and mixed ensemble.
He is also active as a pianist, giving recitals with his daughter, violinist Jennifer Pike, including performances on BBC Radio 3.
conductor Philip Headlam, premiering over 40 new works and recording for Avie and NMC (music
Job Titles:
- Co - Director of the Dorothy Taubman Festival at Montclair State University
Ms. Tammam is Co-Director of the Dorothy Taubman Festival at Montclair State University http://www.taubmanuniversalapproach.org. She was on the Taubman Institute Faculty and International Piano Festival. Dorothy Taubman's premise was, "The body is capable of fulfilling all pianistic demands without a violation of its nature."