Rosamund Conrad – Page 2 – SE22 Piano School ~ East Dulwich

Dulwich Piano Festival 2014 – Event Highlights

The festival is now in its third year and increasing in popularity each year with 124 entries to fit into one jam-packed day. This year, we trialled an entirely paperless online entry and payment system which worked (mostly) smoothly although challenged the limits of my IT skills to try and fix various errors along the way! The programme still took many day to create but the event ran like clockwork on the day so hopefully the administration for the event will be more efficient with the new automated processes. Thank you to the wonderful team of helpers that worked tirelessly from 8am till the evening: Barry, Helen, Hilary, Peter, Vatche and my parents. Thank you to Lou and Tami for photos.

Here are some photos highlights of the event. You can see all the photos on our Facebook page. All photos are available to purchase for a small fee to cover the photographer’s fee.

Entries are already open for the 2015 Festival – see the web site for more information. Limited entries next year as we run a small-scale festival. Early entry advised.

Francis – Grade 1 class, 1st at Dulwich Piano Festival

Angelie – Jazz class, 1st at Dulwich Piano Festival

Harry – Jazz class, 2nd at Dulwich Piano Festival 2014

I also include a video highlight of Claudia Lazarus, winner of the Senior Recital Class.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA_klVNs1gs]

Playing Duets by Rosa Conrad

This blog post is written by composer Rosamund Conrad. A piece from Rosamund’s book, Delightfully Easy Piano Duets, has been chosen as the set piece for the 2014 Dulwich Piano Festival that takes place at Alleyn’s school in June.

Rosamund writes:

Playing duets is a great way to learn the piano. The learner experiences making music with another person, which forces them to listen and become aware of more than their own part. It helps enormously with note reading, which requires you to think ahead and possibly the most important lesson you need in music – to keep going.Playing duets allows the learner to feel they are making a big sound and creating real music.

As a teacher I found that there are a lot of books of ‘easy’ piano duets out there that with duets that really aren’t that easy. I started writing my own and tailoring them to my students’ needs, and this way came up with duet parts that can be played right from the beginning.

The duets are in the 5 finger position, so the beginner never needs to move their hands. They use only very simple rhythmic patterns, as rhythm can often be the most difficult part of note reading. While the duets are in a range of keys, there are no sharps or flats for the student.

The more advanced part I have tried to keep nice and simple, and quick to grasp the gist of so the intermediate player can easily keep an eye on what the beginner is playing. I have tried to make the page turns (when they occur) as easy as possible.

The duets are not specifically geared to any age group, and in my lessons they have been enjoyed by pupils from aged five up to ninety.

I still need more easy duets for my lessons, so book 2 is forming itself and will be out soon.

www.rosaconrad.com