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.

Microjazz piano recording

I spent all of yesterday (14th March) recording all three Microjazz Collections on a Bosendorfer grand piano at Cream Studios in North London - it looks very impressive doesn't it! These will be released on a production library album (or albums) by Cavendish Music (http://music.booseytracks.com) and you'll hopefully also see these pieces-as-played-by-the-composer on iTunes soon. My  website will also have sound clips from these recordings available to listen to in the near future.

It was surprisingly exacting work! The pieces often leave the performer nowhere to hide - you need to be able to keep a steady beat going, the capacity to play syncopated ideas without rushing and plain old flair! Some of the pieces (Get in step, or Tiger Blues for example) really kept this particular performer on his toes.

I had an excellent producer/engineer working with me - Gerry O'Riordan (http://www.spatial-audio.co.uk) who also records the music for Doctor Who! He's a drummer as well as a superb engineer, so any mis-timings were pounced upon eagerly...

Keep watching the site for some final edited and mixed examples from this recording day - all 3 Microjazz Collections were done, including 2 duets with myself from Microjazz Collection 1.

Altrincham workshop 3rd March 2009

The final workshop of my whirlwind UK tour - organised by H Wright Greaves Ltd, a local dealer who specialise in sheet music, this was done rather differently (and very effectively) A local jazz club was hired and teachers and students sat at tables with food and drink. A cabaret-style presentation! A local clarinet and piano duo played beautifully in the breaks (including some world premiere performances of Concert Collection Clarinet) and I sat  at a keyboard at audience level (see above) ; this helped to involve teachers, students and parents.

The youngest student, Alicia, was 7 years old and had previously had only 2 lessons. She did well with some of the American Popular Piano Prep Skills book. A 13-year old boy did some improvising very effectively and an adult student came and helped me play In the Bag from Microstyles. A lot of fun was had by all (me included)  Two of the young players are pictured at the top, both students of the same teacher (also pictured) and both obviously loving their studies.