YOUR INSTRUCTOR MARVIN BLICKENSTAFF

Marvin Blickenstaff is known among piano teachers throughout the country for his teaching, lecturing, performing, and publishing. Currently he maintains a private studio in the Philadelphia area and teaches piano at The New School for Music Study in Princeton. Blickenstaff is the former Board President of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy and is on the Executive Planning Committee of the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. In 2007 the on-line journal Piano Pedagogy Forum published tributes to Blickenstaff honoring his contribution to piano teaching in America. Also in 2007 he was named Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He was honored in 2009 with MTNA’s highest award, the MTNA Achievement Award, and was selected in 2013 by the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy for its Lifetime Achievement Award.

PRAISE for MARVIN BLICKENSTAFF

I cannot sing enough praises about this man as the most inspiring piano pedagogue. Many years ago, I lived near Goshen College in Indiana where Marvin taught for years. I attended one of his summer workshops, and my piano teaching was changed from that moment on. Since then, I try to hear him at every opportunity. I attended the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy conference in Chicago a few years ago for that very reason.

So inspiring! In any given master class, Marvin will inevitably tell the student what he "admires" about their playing. Such a remarkable thing to say. And notice (as I've heard him say is intentional), he never says, "You played this and that great, BUT.... " He never says "but"; he doesn't approach it that way. He adds. He expands. He teaches in the most positive, encouraging, beautiful way. He tells a story, shares the history, paints a picture, evokes a feeling... so that by the time the student plays the piece again, it is utterly transformed. And so are we, the listeners.

Marvin Blickenstaff is Magical.

Marvin demonstrates beautifully the Frances Clark tradition of teaching every student with love, respect, and an intentional way of tuning into each student individually, meeting them where they are and teaching them from their center, not his. I find it remarkable that he is still living among us, and that we have the opportunity to hear him and learn from him, and to follow one of the greatest forms of teaching and learning: to imitate him.

Marvin Blickenstaff is a gift. I hope you'll join me in participating in this course so that you too may be inspired.

Amy Barker, Piano Teacher
College Station, Texas