Christopher Norton Back in Asia October 2013

Christopher Norton in Asia 24^th- 26^th October 2014

I spent most of October 2013 in New Zealand after the sad death of my wife. A projected tour of Australia had to be cancelled, but I decided to reinstate the dates in Asia that were originally in the diary. Ironically, the major event, the Music Learning Live Asia conference in  Singapore, was cancelled while I was in transit, but a fringe event was put together, which I participated in on 24^th October.

The fringe event was held at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at Singapore University:

My redoubtable agents, Olive and Anthony Yau, were with me and had brought an excellent selection of music with them to display and sell:

See if you can identify the books in the picture.

My presentation was an introductory session to my music, so it encompassed Boosey & Hawkes material, particularly Microjazz, Preludes and Concert Collections, as well as the American Popular Piano series. About 100 teachers came to the presentation, representing many countries, including the Phillipines, India, Malaysia, Australia, even Canada. They seemed to like the music very much and sales of signed books were brisk afterwards. One student (and her teacher) bought lots of books and we gave her a chance to choose from one of my composer portraits – often hilarious pictures of famous composers with my face added. Here she is looking at the selection of portraits (she finally chose Debussy!)

My second presentation was at the Steinway showroom in Orchard Road in Singapore. This was the first presentation of what I hope will be a large number of special presentations in Steinway showrooms across Asia. Steinway Gallery Singapore helped a lot with marketing and organising the event. Their marketing department worked marvellously with Olive and Anthony, sending emails about the presentation, working on ticketing and indeed all details of the event. Numbers were surprisingly good, partly because Julie Tan, President of the Singapore Piano Teachers’ Association, helped to publicise the event. I toured with Julie last in 1990 and our association goes back even further than that. Here is a picture of Anthony Yau, CN, Chia Sinn Tech (a former distibutor of my books in Singapore) Julie Tan and Olive Yau.

A very good number of students and teachers came to the Steinway event and I talked about using contemporary styles to improve piano playing. Here’s the lovely poster that Steinway made to publicise the event:

I also had a number of students play for me and commented on their performances. Two girls played a selection of duets from Microjazz Collection 3 very expertly and with great verve. Here they are with their teacher:

There was food and drink after the presentation and I was able to talk to lots of the teachers and students who attended. Plenty of photo opportunities were taken! Here is a photo of the audience during the presentation:

Next we went to Malaysia, where an event had been put together by a very good friend, Lucy Loo, who is a very lively piano teacher as well as one of the leading lights in Christian music in Malaysia.

I visited Malaysia a number of times in the 80s and 90s and it was great to be back. We had a very good turnout for a presentation centred around the theme of Using Popular Styles. The last of the books we had available sold here. A return visit is assured!

Finally, we went to Hong Kong. I didn’t do any presentations, but we did meet with a representative of Tom Lee Music, who would like presentations in 2014.

Presentations in Asia are likely to take centre stage in 2014. This mini-tour, brief as it was, was an indication that there is an interest in my music in these territories and a desire to explore improvisation and popular styles.

Christopher Norton London, UK 6^th November 2013

Christopher Norton at the EPTA UK Conference 2013

Christopher Norton UK EPTA Conference August 29^th and 30^th 2013

The European Piano Teachers Association is the European association for professional piano teachers (www.epta.co.uk) It’s mission is “to raise the standard of piano teaching, piano performance and general musicianship in the UK by providing opportunities for piano teachers, pianists and other interested parties”. EPTA promotes conferences, concerts, lectures, seminars, masterclasses, workshops and other events. Each year the annual conference brings together a lively group of dedicated professionals.

The conference was held in Canterbury, Kent at the lovely St Gregory’s Music Centre:

I was due to assist my good friend Graeme Humphrey

in the opening session of the conference, a presentation about piano duet music, specifically music Graeme has selected and edited for fourhandsplus, the publishing venture we have embarked on (www.fourhandsplus.com) Unfortunately, Graeme suffered a medical emergency the day before the conference (thankfully resolved quickly) so I gamely stepped in and offered a presentation on Music for Ensembles. I have done this presentation in Australasia and it encompasses fourhandsplus duets, American Popular Piano ensembles and Microjazz duets and trios. The presentation references piano duets, piano 6 hands and 8 hands and piano with backing tracks. The audience seemed to enjoy it and I involved various teachers, including the fabulous and awesomely talented Murray McLachlan.

After the session, Murray very kindly described me as “not just a national treasure, but also an international treasure” Nice!

There was a dinner that night and it was great to catch up with teachers from across the UK.

The next morning I did a second session on “Unlocking Popular Styles”. This covered quite a few styles from a number of different series and it was a bit more about audience participation as a drums and percussion vocal ensemble, giving people a chance to feel what it is like to be the bass drum and snare for a rock style or the claves for a bossa nova piece. Here I am at the lovely piano provided for the conference:

The audience included Lana Thompson, one of the Schott team who do such a good job promoting my music in Europe and Asia (on the left) and Wendy Lampa, Schott’s indefatigable product development person (on the right)

This was a nice little conference and a good chance to see UK teachers en masse after so much work overseas.

Christopher Norton

Wellington, New Zealand

17^th October 2013

Christopher Norton North American Grand Tour June 21st - July 5th 2013

Christopher Norton Grand Tour June 21^st – July 5^th 2013

This tour came about because I had a request to attend the CFMTA (Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations - www.cfmta.org) in Halifax, Nova Scotia in late June/early July 2013. I suggested to the President of the Association, Lorna Wanzel, that I could attend if a Christopher Norton Piano Festival in Halifax preceded the conference. And she agreed! Working backwards from the convention, my energetic US agents, Olive and Anthony Yau (www.oliveland.com) set about arranging a number of pre-conference events in Kirkland, WA and in Victoria, Vancouver and Richmond, BC.

Kirkland (www.kirklandwa.gov) is a lovely lakeside suburb of Seattle on the shores of Lake Washington. Olive Yau has a thriving piano teaching studio there, which also doubles as an examination centre for the ABRSM. Olive is originally from Hong Kong, where the ABRSM is "the" music examination system and she first became acquainted with my work because of pieces listed on the ABRSM piano syllabus.

As readers of my occasional reports may know, I have been to Kirkland twice before, once to introduce myself to teachers in the Seattle area and a second time to put on a Christopher Norton Piano Festival. This time Olive and Anthony, her businessman husband, decided to bill the event more like a Summer Camp, with an exciting array of activities available for selection in addition to a basic package of improvisation group, master class and Gala Concert. Here is the list of activities that were on offer:

A total of 138 Camp “slots” were booked and a terrific time was had by all. I had great support from various teachers/helpers and the participants enjoyed both improvising and performing. Here are some photographs of the event, including a picture from above, a group photo and a close-up of 2 young participants:

The event culminated in a lovely Gala Concert, which co-incided with my 60^th birthday! The entire audience sung Happy Birthday and a cake was produced and cut:

I then travelled to Victoria in British Columbia and did a mini-Festival at Tom Lee Music, with improvisation and master classes. Then 2 much larger events, one in Vancouver, the other in Richmond. In Vancouver I had 19 students at once, all with full-sized keyboards!

And here is a lovely shot with students during one of the workshops:

Here is one of the master classes in Richmond:

Tom Lee Music were very pleased with all three events and would like me to come back and do bigger events in 2014.

And so to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I did a more standard Christopher Norton Festival, organized superbly by Shahien Hamza and Lexie Blackler:

Shahien and Lexie are keen to do a larger event next year as well! And so to the original reason for going to North America – the Conference in Halifax. Apart from 2 presentations, I spent quite a bit of time on the stand of the local music dealer, playing and chatting to teachers. The final dinner was a lovely chance to see my many Canadian friends, including the redoubtable Gunars Balodis, the co-founder of Music for Young Children:

This was a most enjoyable Grand Tour and I hope to do it all again on an even grander scale in 2014!

Christopher Norton

London 3^rd September 2013

Christopher Norton at Clement Pianos, Nottingham, UK April 21st 2013

Clement Pianos has been trading in Nottingham for 90 years. To quote from their website (www.clementpianos.com)

Established in 1919, Clement Pianos are now a third generation family business. Owners Mick & Andy Wilson, both of whom are piano technicians, trained by some of the world's finest, have spent many years carefully selecting what they consider to be the ultimate instruments in each class and price category.

Apart from their wonderful piano showroom and recording studio, they also run the Nottingham International Jazz Competition (http://nijpc.com) which was won in 2012 by Jeremy Siskind, who I know well from various conventions in America and who always comes and does a duet with me on the APP stand. Small world! Here’s Jeremy (www.jeremysiskind.com)

Clement Pianos has a selection of sheet music for sale in the showroom and decided to put on a Christopher Norton event, partly due to the enthusiasm of a teacher who came to my last Nottingham presentation (see the report on that workshop at http://christophernorton.blogspot.com/2012/09/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html)

The presentation at Clement Pianos started with American Popular Piano, introducing the series but also immediately launching into simple improvisation. Students and teachers had a go at this and one of the teachers did particularly well:

The audience were very interested in both the Repertoire and the improvisation Etudes and looked at the books on sale with great interest in the interval:

The second half was all things Microjazz, with video clips of students from around the world as well as performances by me and by some students who had learned the pieces for examinations. This was also of great interest to the audience, especially the backing tracks for Microjazz and the wealth of online resources now available on Youtube and Facebook.

The idea came up of both another, longer workshop day and also of a Nottingham-based Piano Festival. I hope to see some or all of the teachers and students again sometime soon.

 Christopher Norton, London, UK 24^th April 2013

Christopher Norton at Messe, Frankfurt 12th and 13th April 2013

Christopher Norton at the Frankfurt Music Fair (Messe Frankfurt) 12th – 13^th April 2013

The Frankfurt Music Fair is the big European event for music retailers and I have attended it for at least 20 years now! As always, I stayed at the delightfully named Hotel Hammer in Mainz. The picturesque Mainz railway station is across the road from the hotel:

I was at the Messe for the 2 public days, so was able to talk to customers as well as to dealers. One highlight was meeting a flute player who met me at the Messe last year and had bought the Concert Collection for Flute. She liked it very much and was interested to hear that the Sonatina for Flute and Piano as well as the 2 Microjazz Flute Collections were now available to listen to on Soundcloud (as well as being for sale from www.boosey.com) http://soundcloud.com/nortonchristopher/sets/sonatina-for-flute-and-piano/ 

Here she is with the composer:

The head of publishing at Boosey & Hawkes, James Eggleston, was at the Messe and while we were there we were able to do quite a few useful things. One was to meet with Sarah Holcroft, the person at Faber Music who is overseeing the building of my new website (www.christophernorton.com) Another was to talk to a dealer who wants to do editions of Microjazz for Absolute Beginners and Microjazz for Beginners in Italian and Spanish. Here’s James with the Italian dealer (James is on the right):

I showed James scores and music of some of the pieces from my new Micro Musicals. These will be the first featured new products on my new-look website (which should be ready by August) I’ve written 5 Micro Musicals so far and they are suitable for children in years 3 to 6. Piano scores, backing tracks (including “teaching” tracks) dialogue and suggestions for staging will all be part of a series of useful packs. And each Micro Musical can be taught in one day and lasts no longer than 20 minutes!

Workshops in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden were all discussed with dealers – more details will follow.

This was a low-key event – numbers at large Music Fairs are diminishing – but was worthwhile for strengthening links with European dealers and for getting the chance to speak direct to customers. And of course it was great to see colleagues from Schott and Hal Leonard US as well.

Christopher Norton. London April 17^th 2013

Christopher Norton writes 5 Micro Musicals!

Christopher Norton writes 5 Micro Musicals – February 12^th &13^th, March 20^th-22^nd, March 25th & 26^th 2013, Davies Lane Primary School, Leytonstone, east London and Selwyn School, Highams Park, east London

I’ve worked for many years with an excellent cellist, Robin Thompson-Clarke.

In his own words:

I first met Chris while working as a professional cellist. I was asked to play on John Pantry's album "Simple Sailing for Beginners' (CN: available for download at www.christophernortonpublishing.com) As luck would have it, there were a couple of solo cello parts and Chris was very complimentary about my playing. He offered me the opportunity to work with him over the following years and I played cello on at least 40 albums, including 4 solo albums. During this time I “fixed” musicians for Chris for many albums and as well as working with Chris, I have also acted (and continue to act) as his agent from time to time.

While working together we became friends and have remained so ever since. I gave the first UK performance of his Sonatina for cello and piano and we are due to record it in the near future. As well as continuing to work as a professional cellist, including teaching at the Royal College of Music, I am now also a fully qualified primary school teacher, working in an East London school as part of the senior leadership team and as their Advanced Skills Teacher for Music.

Robin asked me to come to the school he teaches at, Davies Lane Primary School in Leytonstone, and both create and teach 3 musicals effectively “from scratch”. I was given the themes, but was otherwise free to do what I liked, as long as 8 songs could be taught in a day to around 60 children from one year group!

Davies Lane school is a very tall building, a Victorian monolith at the end of a suburban street:

The first musical was based on A Christmas carol and naturally had songs for Scrooge, the three ghosts and Bob Cratchit. I wrote the words as well as the music and was quite amused at the relish with which the students spoke the lines of the first song, I hate Christmas!

To quote Robin again:

The 'Musical from Scratch' workshop with Chris was a fantastic success. He worked alongside the teachers from a whole year group of 65 children, to create a musical based on Charles Dickens's ' A Christmas Carol', which they had been studying. From the very start all the children were engaged, eager to contribute to the lyrics of each song. Children who were normally reticent about singing were completely involved. As the day progressed, Chris developed the ideas, adding instruments, body percussion and even 'whiteboards' to accompany the songs. Solo singing and small groups were also added. Chris's music, original and contemporary, brought a sense of the 'West End' to this East London school; an experience few had or would ever participate in. Would I recommend you invite Chris to your school-a wholehearted YES!

The second musical was based on the legend of Beowulf and was suitably blood-thirsty and dramatic. The students relished the mixture of symphonic rock and heart-felt ballads, as well as the chance to do dramatic speaking over music.

A few weeks later I went back to Davies Lane Primary School and Robin and I worked on the music, adding vocal harmonies and some canonic ideas as well as working with drummers, guitarists and tuned percussion. Meanwhile other teachers had worked on a script which would help tell the story in dramatic form, as well as costumes and set design. At the end of the second day’s work on each musical, we performed 4 songs, with additional dialogue and staging, for an enthusiastic audience of parents, other year groups and teachers.

A third musical, based on the Vikings, was also devised, this time for year 3 students and its subsequent staging will happen as well.

I also went to another school, Selwyn Primary School in Highams Park (also in east London) and wrote and taught musicals based on Queen Nut – an Egyptian theme – and Theseus and the Minotaur. Return visits will also see these worked on further and presented as staged concert performances.

Visits of a similar nature to other schools are already planned in May and June.

If the idea of Christopher Norton coming to your school to either teach or write a Micro Musical is of interest to you, in the UK, get in touch with Robin Thompson-Clarke at robintc@me.com. For North America, contacty Olive Yau at olive@oliveland.com.

Musicals written so far:

A Christmas Carol

Bewoulf

The Vikings

Queen Nut

Theseus and the Minotaur

Christopher Norton

London, UK 29^th March 2013

Christopher Norton in Southern California March 2013

Christopher Norton in Southern California 9^th – 16^th March 2013

I’ve been to MTNA (the Music Teachers National Association) every year since 2007, not to mention the MTNA in Portland in 1987! This year, MTNA, the biggest music teacher convention in the US, took place in Anaheim, CA. Ok, it was held at the Disneyland Hotel! Here’s where I was staying:

and for those of you with an interest in such things, here’s what was on the bed of my hotel room:

So there you have it….

At MTNA, I was manning a booth that represented both American Popular Piano and Boosey & Hawkes books and I played lots of music from both series, as well as from Connections. I had a nice piano and was able to provide hands-on experience to teachers (including APP improvisation Etudes)

Scott McBride Smith and I also did a presentation on APP, which was remarkably well-attended (125 people) considering it was at 8 am! Sales were strong across all products and there was lots of interest in Piano Festivals and other events. I was also very pleased to meet up with Jovanni-Rey De Pedro, who has commissioned my new Jazz Piano Sonata, and we went through it on one of the many grand pianos available.

Australian composer (but New Zealand-born, that’s the important thing!) Elissa Milne and her mother also stopped by and were serenaded (at their request) with Christmas carols from the new(ish) Microjazz Christmas books.

It was a very worthwhile convention, with events hosted by Clavier Companion, who I write occasional articles for, and by Scott McBride Smith and Ingrid Clarfield. I also hung out with David and Olvia Riddell from MYC, Susan Geffen from Clavier Companion, Connie Wible from Seattle, not to mention Dennis Alexander, Peter Mack, Vanessa Curdett-Murtada…. And I was particularly delighted that my US “agents”, Olive and Anthony Yau, were able to come to the convention for a day and meet with me and others to plan an exciting 2014.

After MTNA, I did a number of events in Orange County and Santa Monica for local teachers. The first was at Nancy Woo’s Southwest Conservatory of Music, where I gave a well-received presentation to a group of local teachers on using pop styles. Here are 2 of the teachers after the presentation, looking forward to using the books in their studios:

Nancy Woo’s name is on the ballot for the MTAC (Music Teachers Association of California) state board of directors, so she’s not just a great piano teacher and ace music dealer!

I also did 2 sessions with Nancy’s students. Rhythm Mania was the name of the session and they played and jammed on pieces in 8 different styles. A good time was had by all.

The next day I had been invited to take a masterclass with 9 students of Sue Dibble, a private teacher based in Irvine. Sue's website is  http://ezpiano.org - do check it out. The students were well prepared and really delightful as well. Here’s one of them after the masterclass:

Sue is from Malaysia, but married to an American, so we had a really first-rate meal at an authentic Malaysian restaurant after the masterclass:

My final post-MTNA event was organised by Deborah How in Santa Monica. Deborah has been a leading light in the Carnegie Hall assessment programme and has also started a new initiative, Bravura Innovations (www.BRAVURAinnovations.com) that is hoping to help legitimise more popular and improvisatory strands in formal piano examinations.

This event consisted of a master class for 2 hours, followed by “Rhythm Mania” for 2 hours. The masterclass had students from 2 studios and they were well prepared and played very musically. The parents (and teachers I suspect) were pleasantly surprised to hear how much emphasis I placed on correct hand position and graceful phrasing. I got most of the students to try to play with a track, which they hadn’t done before. Most of them did very well in a more strict-time environment.

Rhythm Mania was a session exploring playing by ear, playing chords in inversion through a chord progression (with a backing track) playing a bass line through a chord progression, creating an idea that is repeated and “drumming” along to a teacher part or track. We used 8 pieces, from APP, Connections, Microjazz, Microstyles, MicroRock and MicroBallads. I had 20 students on digital pianos as well as some teachers and parents on pianos around the outside. A very stimulating session!

There is definitely great interest in Southern California in a Christopher Norton Piano Festival and other related events. My material is listed on the Royal Conservatory Assessment Programme, ABRSM and the Californian Certificate of Merit, so name recognition is becoming less of an issue for teachers. The next step is to persuade more Californian teachers that exploring popular styles and improvisation in this way is not daunting or even entirely unfamiliar. See you in 2014! Do check out http://www.oliveland.com/nortonevent

Christopher Norton

Los Angeles, CA 17^th March 2013

Christopher Norton in Southern California

Christopher Norton at Davies Lane Primary School, Leytonstone (London) 12^th and 13^th February 2013

I’ve worked for many years with a superb cellist, Robin Thompson-Clarke.

In Robin's own words:

I first met Chris while working as a professional cellist, when I was asked to play on John Pantry's album "Simple Sailing for Beginners'”. As luck would have it, there were a couple of solo cello parts and Chris was very complimentary about my playing. He offered me the opportunity to work with him over the following years, playing cello on at least 40 albums, including 4 solo ones of my own. During this time I fixed musicians for Chris for many albums and as well as working with Chris. I have also acted and continue to act as his “agent” from time to time.

While working together we became friends and have remained so ever since. I gave the first UK performance of his Sonatina for cello and piano and Chris and I are going to record it in the near future. As well as continuing to work as a professional cellist, including teaching at the Royal College of Music, I am also a fully qualified primary school teacher, working in an East London, school as part of the senior leadership team and as their Advanced Skills Teacher for Music.

Robin’s recent career as a primary school teacher has created opportunities for me to go into schools he is working in and work with his students, either getting them to compose their own music or perform pieces for me, some composed by me, others pieces I’d found that I thought they would enjoy. But the idea he had for Davies Lane Primary School in Leytonstone was a radically new one – I would come in and work with 2 entire year groups for a day each and write two “instant musicals”, one based on Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, the other based on the Beowulf saga!

I sketched out each musical – words and music – the night before and then revised and added to each of them, each consisting of 8 songs, before teaching them to the groups (each of around 65 children aged between 8 and 10) by ear.  I had a piano, Robin was there with his cello and we also had a visiting teaching assistant who played guitar.

Apart from that, there were 7 hand drums and a bass drum as well as a small marimba and a glockenspiel. I auditioned students on the fly and ended up with a good group of players in each group, who both copied what I showed them and devised their own parts. I conducted the whole thing:

To quote Robin again:

The 'Musical from Scratch' workshop with Chris was a fantastic success. Chris worked alongside the teachers from a whole year group of 65 children, to create musicals based on Charles Dickens's ' A Christmas Carol', and on the saga of Beowulf, both of which the children had been studying. From the very start, all of the children were engaged, even eager to contribute to the lyrics of each song! Children who were normally reticent about singing were completely involved. As the day progressed, Chris developed the ideas, adding instruments, body percussion and even whiteboards played with pens to accompany the songs. Solo singing and small groups were also added. Chris's music, original and contemporary, brought a sense of the 'West End' to this East London school; an experience few had or would ever participate in. Would I recommend you invite Chris to your school - a wholehearted YES!

I will be returning to Davies Lane School shortly (in March 2013) for 2 days further work with the same students. For at least half of each of the 2 days, each year group will be split into 3, with me and Robin  working with the most able musically. We will look at more solo/part singing and more rehearsed instrumental work. Each year group will be concentrating on 3/4 songs to perform on the evening of the 26^th March (4-5pm) We will work primarily on these songs although we will try to add most of the songs if possible. The other two thirds of the year group will be working on the drama, scenery and costumes for the play (concentrating again on the 3/4 chosen songs). The afternoon session will put it all back together, concentrating on the songs for the performance, and recording all of the musical.

And I am going into another 2 schools in March to do more “instant musicals”, initially on Queen Nut (so an Egyptian theme) and Theseus and the minotaur. This is an exciting new development! Scores and backing tracks will in due course be made available from www.christophernorton.com, along with a license to make copies.

Schools in other parts of the country have also expressed interest and I will add the "mini-musicals" idea to the Events package featured at http://www.oliveland.com/nortonevent/

 Christopher Norton, Los Angeles, CA 16th March 2013