Frankfurt

I'm not long back from Frankfurt - the big annual music fair called Frankfurt Messe. I was there representing four organisations - Boosey & Hawkes, my UK publisher, Schott, my European distributor, Hal Leonard, my American and Canadian distributor and of course Novus Via, my own company. 

Here's a picture of the Boosey & Hawkes part of the Schott stand:

I spent much of my time talking to private teachers and teachers at music schools (very popular on mainland Europe) from Germany mostly, but also from Vienna and Northern Italy. Most knew my work and all were interested in presentations in their area - watch his space!

I also was interested to see what other things are happening in music education publishing and to see colleagues from other companies - Faber Music, Music Sales and Trinity Guildhall, ABRSM and Universal Edition. 

American Popular Piano was on display - it's new to Europe and the whole process of letting people know about it starts now, as it did with Microjazz back in the early 80s. Here's me beside the APP stand at Frankfurt in my trendy new glasses...

Atlanta MTNA

I'm typing this at Atlanta airport - in an hour or so I fly to Paris and then to Frankfurt for the Frankfurt Music Fair. I've spent the last 3 days at MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) www.mtna.org It's the biggest convention in the US for private music teachers - there were around 1700 delegates this year. I was represented by three distributors:

Frederick Harris for the Connections series (www.christophernortonconnections.com) 

Hal Leonard for all Boosey & Hawkes publications and also for Riffs and Grooves, a new 

compilation of Microjazz, Microstyles and Big Beats from Hal Leonard (www.halleonard.com) 

Novus Via Music (www.nvmusicgroup.com) for American Popular Piano

I played much of the time on the Novus Via stand, demonstrating all of the American Popular Piano series, particularly Levels 6-8 (Repertoire and Etudes) which are brand-new publications. Scott McBride Smith and I did a presentation to a gratifyingly large group

(at 8 am!) and I am starting to feel that the series is starting to really catch fire. It's only 2 years old and let's face it America is a big country! I have had invitations from various teacher groups around America to come and speak - it looks like a busy year ahead.

We had a great team, including Richard and Isaac Holbrook, brothers who play the piano very well and also teach very successfully in Denver, using APP to great effect. The picture

above is of Isaac, sporting a wig that emphasises the traditional skills aspect of APP. Nice eh?

We had our own "entourage"  ..

Below is a picture of me and Scott McBride Smith doing our stuff for the assembled teachers.

And here is the famous pianist Olga Kern (www.olgakern.com) on the American Popular Piano stand.