2023 Golandsky Institute Summer Symposium takes place ONLINE from July 7 to July 10 and brings together musicians of all abilities and ages from around the world who are looking for solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.

If this is your first time, you will learn the reasons for those problems and the way to begin to solve them.

If you have been studying this work, you will deepen your knowledge and become a better pianist and a more effective teacher.

The Symposium offers a rich curriculum:

• Presentations and lectures with expertly trained and certified faculty of the Taubman Approach
   
• Masterclasses with faculty and guest artists, Seán Brett Duggan, Ilya Itin, and Edna Golandsky
   
• Performances by world-renowned concert artists, Josu De Solaun and Ilya Itin
   
• Immersive technique clinics and problem solving sessions
   
• One-on-one work and Q&A sessions
  
  AND SO MUCH MORE!

The Symposium is $525 for 3 days (July 7-9). Early bird is $475, to be paid by June 7, 2023.

For information on the Monday, July 10 session (additional $100) please check the Schedule. 

Registration deadline: June 23, 2023 EXTENDED to JULY 4

Question submission deadline: June 25, 2023
Instructions for submitting questions will be sent upon registration.

Video recording of the Symposium will be available to all registrants after the Symposium is finished. Please allow 1-2 weeks for the video to be available. An email notification will be sent to all registrants when they are ready. Be sure to add golandskyinstitute.org to your spam filter so you receive our emails! Videos will be available for 3 months from posting.

Access to the Evening Performances is included for Symposium participants.

Cancellation Policy: The fee is refundable upon written request by June 7, 2023. No refunds shall be granted for participants whose request is received after June 7.

Crossing Hands Without Confusion or Catastrophe: To cross over, to cross under, or not to cross at all?

Passages that traverse the keyboard over wide distances sometimes require a quick crossing of the hands. The issue is how to make a rather acrobatic choreography feel reliable and secure. This presentation by John Bloomfield will give you tools for handling challenging passages in the repertoire with confidence and ease.

Waldscenen (Forest Scenes) Op. 82 by Schumann

Waldscenen, Op. 82, was Robert Schumann’s only large-scale piano work written towards the end of his career. Many of the individual pieces in this cycle are an appropriate way for intermediate pianists to transition into more advanced Romantic repertoire. Mary Moran will discuss how the concepts of the Taubman Approach will make these exquisite pieces accessible.

Chopin's Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 (Heroic)

Robert Durso will discuss the musical and technical issues involved with the performance of this work. He will apply the Taubman Approach for the most effective solutions to common technical challenges used in this beautiful piece.

Q & A

Edna Golandsky will answer a selection of questions.

Monday, July 10

Using the Taubman Approach to Overcome Anxiety for a Calm and Successful Performance Outcome

Performing an instrument demands a level of accuracy unparalleled in many fields, inextricably tied to the additional need for musical expression. As pianists, we are often alone on stage, managing tens of thousands of notes, learning collaborative parts last minute, and playing unfamiliar instruments under pressure. No wonder so many of us feel anxious at the thought of performing. Therese shares her insights and experience of how to use tools of the Taubman Approach during the preparation process to help create a calm, successful and enjoyable performance.
===
Therese Milanovic
Golandsky Institute Associate Faculty, Master Level

Enhancing Intuition

Recognizing and Optimizing Pianistic Instincts

Much of what we think, believe, and do is decided by automatic mental processes of which we are mostly unaware. Our gut instincts and intuitive thinking are fast and often accurate. However, when our intuition makes an error, it usually goes undetected and we miss an opportunity to learn and improve. This is especially true in learning to play a musical instrument. Dorothy Taubman understood this, and much of the Taubman Approach involves retraining, refining, and optimizing technical, physical, and musical intuition.
===
Brenna Berman
Golandsky Institute Associate Faculty, Master Level

Taubman Tools in Baroque Style

In this presentation, we will discuss ways in which the Taubman approach facilitates expression in Bach’s Praeludium 12 in F Minor, BWV 881, including dynamic control, articulation, and contrapuntal phrasing.
===
Deborah Cleaver
Golandsky Institute Faculty, Master Level

TBD
===
Father Seán Brett Duggan
Golandsky Institute Faculty, Master Level

Edna Golandsky

Founder and Artistic Director, Leading Expert

Edna Golandsky is the leading exponent of the Taubman Approach. She has earned wide acclaim throughout the United States and abroad for her extraordinary ability to solve technical problems and for her penetrating musical insight. She received both her bachelor of music and master of music degrees from the Juilliard School, following which she continued her studies with Dorothy Taubman.

Performers and students from around the world come to study, coach, and consult with Ms. Golandsky. A pedagogue of international renown, she has a long- established reputation for the expert diagnosis and treatment of problems such as fatigue, pain, and serious injuries, including carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, focal dystonia, thoracic outlet syndrome, tennis and golfer’s elbow, and ganglia. She has been a featured speaker at many music medicine conferences. She is also an adjunct professor of piano at the City University of New York (CUNY).

[Read more]

John Bloomfield

Co-Founder, Senior Director, Faculty Chair, Leading Expert

John Bloomfield is a Ken­tucky native and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Furman University in Greenville, S.C. An award-winning solo and chamber pianist, he has been broadcast by Public Radio in New England and has been heard on the air in New York under the auspices of Ars Viva. He earned a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, and since then has been a long-term student of Dorothy Taubman and Edna Go­landsky. He has taught at Adelphi University and in the pre-college division of the Manhattan School of Music. In demand as a clinician and adjudicator around the country, he has lectured at a number of colleges and universities.

[Read more]

Robert Durso

Co-Founder, Senior Director, Leading Expert

Robert Durso attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music, obtained his bachelor of music degree from Indiana University, Bloomington, and received his master of music degree from Temple University. His principal teach­ers were Enrica Cavallo-Gulli, Harvey Wedeen, Edna Golandsky, Dorothy Taubman, and Rosalyn Tureck.

Mr. Durso has performed extensively, including appearances at Weill Recital Hall, the Philadelphia Ethical Society, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and in a tour of South Carolina sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. In September 2000, Mr. Durso was invited to Caracas, Venezuela, by the U.S. Embassy to present the work of Dorothy Taubman for the first time in South America.

[Read more]

Mary Moran

Co-Founder, Senior Director, Leading Expert

Mary Moran has been on the adjunct faculties of Russell Sage College and Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York, teaching applied piano, music appreciation, and arranging. She has studied the Taubman Approach to Piano Performance since 1977, primarily with Edna Golandsky. She was a faculty member of the Taubman Institute of Piano from 1981 through 2002, and has been recognized for her application of this approach to children’s pedagogy. She has been invited to lecture on technical training for students and give master classes by many music teachers’ organizations in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, and at Portland State University and Williams College.

[Read more]

[Stay tuned for the July 7-9 schedule]

Monday, July 10

ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

9:30 AM - 10:15 AM

Using the Taubman Approach to Overcome Anxiety for a Calm and Successful Performance Outcome

Performing an instrument demands a level of accuracy unparalleled in many fields, inextricably tied to the additional need for musical expression. As pianists, we are often alone on stage, managing tens of thousands of notes, learning collaborative parts last minute, and playing unfamiliar instruments under pressure. No wonder so many of us feel anxious at the thought of performing. Therese shares her insights and experience of how to use tools of the Taubman Approach during the preparation process to help create a calm, successful and enjoyable performance.
===
Therese Milanovic
Golandsky Institute Associate Faculty, Master Level

10:30 AM - 11:15 AM

Enhancing Intuition

Recognizing and Optimizing Pianistic Instincts

Much of what we think, believe, and do is decided by automatic mental processes of which we are mostly unaware. Our gut instincts and intuitive thinking are fast and often accurate. However, when our intuition makes an error, it usually goes undetected and we miss an opportunity to learn and improve. This is especially true in learning to play a musical instrument. Dorothy Taubman understood this, and much of the Taubman Approach involves retraining, refining, and optimizing technical, physical, and musical intuition.
===
Brenna Berman
Golandsky Institute Associate Faculty, Master Level

11:30 AM - 12:15 PM

Taubman Tools in Baroque Style

In this presentation, we will discuss ways in which the Taubman approach facilitates expression in Bach’s Praeludium 12 in F Minor, BWV 881, including dynamic control, articulation, and contrapuntal phrasing.
===
Deborah Cleaver
Golandsky Institute Faculty, Master Level

12:15 PM - 1:30 PM - Lunch Break

1:30 PM - 2:15 PM

TBD
===
Father Seán Brett Duggan
Golandsky Institute Faculty, Master Level

2:30 PM - 3:15 PM

Master Class with Father Seán Brett Duggan

Ilya Itin has performed with many of the world’s great conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Neemi Jarvi, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Yakov Kreizberg, Vassily Sinaisky, Valery Polyansky, and Mikhail Pletnev performing as soloist with orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Tokyo Symphony, the National Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the China National Symphony, the Symphony Orchestra of India; the Mexico City Philharmonic; and the Rochester Philharmonic.

Born in Yekaterinburg, Russia, his piano studies began at the Sverdlovsk School for the Gifted with Natalia Litvinova. He went on to graduate from the Moscow Conservatory with the highest honors in 1990 working with legendary teacher Lev Naumov. Mr. Itin won his first major piano competition while at the Conservatory, taking second place in the 1990 Russian National Rachmaninov Competition. Soon after, he won top honors in the William Kapell Competition, followed by First Prize, and the Special Chopin Prize at the Casadesus Competition (Cleveland Competition), and the Best Performance of a Work of Mozart, Best Prokofiev Performance, and Third Prize at the Gina Bachauer Competition.

Ilya Itin is on the teaching faculties of the Musashino Academy in Tokyo, the Academy of the Miami International Piano Festival and the Golandsky Institute at Princeton University. He has also taught in the piano departments of the Juilliard School prep and college divisions, Peabody Conservatory, and the Graduate Program at CUNY. Ilya Itin resides in Tokyo, Japan, and New York City where he maintains a private teaching studio.

Father Seán Brett Duggan, O.S.B., attended Loyola University in New Orleans and received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and a Master of Fine Arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He graduated summa cum laude with a Master of Arts degree in Theology from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans and was ordained to the priesthood. In September 1983, Father Duggan won first prize in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition for pianists in Washington, D.C., which entitled him, among other honors, to give various concerts around the country and a two-month tour of Germany. In the “Bach Year,” 1985, he gave complete performances of The Well-Tempered Clavier in New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Birmingham to critical acclaim. In 1991 he participated again in the Bach Competition in Washington, D.C.; this time he was one of three first-place winners, which entitled him to another round of concert engagements and a second tour of Germany.

Throughout the year 2000, the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, Father Duggan performed the complete cycle of the composer’s keyboard works eight times in a series of fifteen recitals entitled “Bach On the Threshold of Hope.”

Father Duggan, currently on the piano faculty at the State University of New York at Fredonia, is in the midst of recording the complete (non-organ) keyboard works of Bach for commercial release.

Edna Golandsky is the leading exponent of the Taubman Approach. She has earned wide acclaim throughout the United States and abroad for her extraordinary ability to solve technical problems and for her penetrating musical insight. She received both her bachelor of music and master of music degrees from the Juilliard School, following which she continued her studies with Dorothy Taubman.

Performers and students from around the world come to study, coach, and consult with Ms. Golandsky. A pedagogue of international renown, she has a long- established reputation for the expert diagnosis and treatment of problems such as fatigue, pain, and serious injuries, including carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, focal dystonia, thoracic outlet syndrome, tennis and golfer’s elbow, and ganglia. She has been a featured speaker at many music medicine conferences. She is also an adjunct professor of piano at the City University of New York (CUNY).

Ms. Golandsky has lectured and conducted master classes at some of the most prestigious music institutions in the United States, including the Eastman School of Music, Yale University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory. Internationally, she has given seminars in Canada, Holland, Israel, Korea, Panama, and Turkey. In 2001 she was a guest lecturer at the European Piano Teachers’ Association in Oxford, England, and in July 2003 she conducted a symposium in Lecce, Italy. In August 2010, she gave a master class and judged in a piano competition at the Chatauqua Festival. She was a guest presenter at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference in 2003 and 2009 and was engaged to return in October 2010. In 2011 she was a guest presenter at the Music Teachers National Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Piano Teachers Congress of New York; and the Music Teachers Association of California. She gave week-long workshops at the Panama Jazz Festival at 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014. In 2012, she presented as a part of the New York University Steinhardt Master Class series and at the Music Teachers Association of California annual convention in San Diego.

For the past several years, Edna Golandsky has been working with violinist, Sophie Till, who came seeking relief from long-standing problems. This has led to developing a comprehensive application of the Taubman work to string instruments. Together, they went to England in 2013, to conduct a symposium for both piano and violin at Cambridge University.

Edna Golandsky is the person with whom Dorothy Taubman worked most closely. In 1976, Ms. Golandsky conceived the idea of establishing an Institute where people could come together during the summer and pursue an intensive investigation of the Taubman Approach. She encouraged Mrs. Taubman to establish the Taubman Institute, which they ran together as co-founders. Mrs. Taubman was executive director and Ms. Golandsky served as artistic director. Almost from the beginning, Mrs. Taubman entrusted Ms. Golandsky with the planning and programming of the annual summer session. She gave daily lectures on the Taubman Approach and later conducted master classes as well. As the face of the Taubman Approach, Ms. Golandsky discusses each of its elements in a ten- volume video series. Mrs. Taubman has written, “I consider her the leading authority on the Taubman Approach to instrumental playing.”

Edna Golandsky’s lectures have broadened the Taubman Approach and imparted it to many people who have come to benefit from it. As her knowledge deepened over the years, she continued to develop new material. She presents the Taubman Approach in its entirety in the ten-DVD set The Taubman Techniques. In conjunction with the Golandsky Institute, she has further developed the Taubman Approach in the three-DVD set, The Art of Rhythmic Expression, which has been praised worldwide; and the two-DVD set, The Forgotten Lines: Lines that Support, Surround, and Intensify the Melody.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Golandsky has developed instructional materials so that pianists can have access to this body of knowledge. Almost a million pianists have viewed them.

Also recognizing the common denominator between keyboards of all kinds and that pianists’ injuries are applicable to all keyboard users, Ms. Golandsky established Healthy Typing, a consulting service to help relieve the heavy economic and physical damage that incorrect keyboard habits produce.

JOSU DE SOLAUN [Read Bio] Friday, July 7

• Chopin - Variations Op. 12
• Chopin - Impromptu Op. 36
• Chopin - Polonaise-Fantaise, Op. 61
• Mompou - Variations on a Theme by Chopin
• Mendelssohn - Variations Serieuses Op. 54
• Wagner/F. Liszt - The Love-Death of Isolde (from Tristan and Isolde)
• Granados - Love and Death (Balada) (from the suite Goyescas)

ILYA ITIN [Read Bio] Saturday, July 8

Bach Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor BWV 903
Grieg Selection from Lyric Pieces

Bell Ringing Op. 54 No. 6
Berceuse Op. 38 No. 1
Valse-Impromptu Op. 47 No. 1
Butterfly Op. 43 No. 1
Melodie Op. 47 No. 3
Halling ( Norwegian dance ) Op. 47 No. 4
Vanished Days Op. 57 No. 1
Grandmother’s Minuet Op. 68 No. 2
Brooklet Op. 62 No. 3
Homesickness Op. 57 No. 6
Wedding day in Troldhaugen Op. 65 No. 6

Brahms Sonata No. 3 in F minor Op. 5

Encores:

Grieg To the Spring Op. 43 No. 6
Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

Josu De Solaun has been hailed by the international press for his “poetic sense of sound, artistic vision and brilliant virtuoso skills, entirely at the service of the works being performed.” Nikolaus Frey, Fuldaer Zeitung. He is an extraordinarily prolific pianist-composer performing in many of the world’s most celebrated halls as concerto soloist, chamber musician, solo piano recitalist and solo improviser and composer. He is also a published poet.

The opening of the 2020 – 2021 season featured his debut free improv concert, panDEMiCity, in León, in March 2021 – (recorded live for release in July 2021), as well as performances as concerto soloist with orchestras in Spain, Czech Republic and Romania. In 2021, he also received the prestigious ICMA Award (International Classical Music Award) for his recording of French violin Sonatas with violinist Franziska Pietsch. His latest solo album of works by Brahms and Schumann for the IBS Classical label has garnered excellent reviews. This summer he will record both Liszt Piano Concerti as well as Totentanz with the Moravian National Philharmonic.

First Prize winner of the XIII George Enescu International Piano Competition, Bucharest (also won by legendary pianists Radu Lupu and Elisabeth Leonskaja), the XV José Iturbi International Piano Competition and the First European Union Piano Competition, Spanish-American pianist Josu De Solaun has been invited to perform in distinguished concert halls throughout the world, including the Romanian Athenaeum, Bucharest, Teatro La Fenice, Mariinsky Theatre, The Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera, London’s Southbank Centre, Salle Cortot, Leipzig’s Schumann Haus, Taipei’s Novel Hall, Mexico City’s Sala Silvestre Revueltas, Prague’s Nostitz Palace, Academia de España, Menton Festival International de Musique, and all the major cities of Spain. He is the only pianist from Spain to win the Enescu and Iturbi competitions in their respective histories, and was recently invited to a private reception with the King and Queen of Spain at the Royal Palace after winning the coveted Bucharest prize. In 2019 he was given the title of Officer of Cultural Merit, a state decoration, by Klaus Iohannis, president of Romania.

Beginning at a young age, he has performed in France, Georgia, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Germany, Japan, China, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Mexico, Chile, and Switzerland as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist, playing under conductors such as Constantin Orbelian, Ormsby Wilkins, Gheorghe Costin, Rumon Gamba, Romeo Rimbu, Ilarion Ionescu-Galati, Robert Houlihan, Karl Sollak, Marco de Prosperis, Alvise Casellati, Ovidiu Balan, Horia Andreescu, Radu Postavaru, Christian Badea, Bruno Aprea, Ramón Tébar, Justus Frantz, Francesco Angelico, Yaron Traub, Max Bragado, Paul Daniel, Ryan Haskins, Constantin Grigore, Theodore Kuchar, Jonathan Pasternack, Yuri Krasnapolsky, Alexis Soriano, Francisco Valero, Shinya Ozaki, Radu Gabriel Ciorei, Manuel Hernandez Silva, and Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez, among others, as well with orchestras such as the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra of Saint Petersburg, Orchestra Filarmonica la Fenice of Venice, George Enescu Philharmonic of Bucharest, Bucharest Radio Orchestra, Timisoara Philharmonic, Cluj Philharmonic, Oradea Philharmonic, Brasov Philharmonic, Ploiesti Philharmonic, Iasi Philharmonic, Targu Mures Philharmonic, Satu Mare Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Orquesta de Valencia, Rudolf Barshai Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, Monterey Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, Malaga Philharmonica Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de la Region de Murcia, Spain’s Radio and Television Orchestra (RTVE), American Ballet Theatre Orchestra of New York, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, and Bari Philharmonic Orchestra of Italy. His performances have been broadcast on Spanish National Radio and TV, Taiwanese National TV, Czech National TV, as well as on New York’s WQXR, Princeton’s WPRB, and Chicago’s WFMT.

His repertoire includes rare piano concerti such as Leonard Bernstein's Symphony Nr. 2 "The Age of Anxiety", Giuseppe Martucci's 2nd Piano Concerto, Britten's Diversions, Hummel's A-Minor piano concerto, Constantinescu's Piano Concerto, as well as the complete concerti of Liszt, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Bartok. He is also an avid improviser and frequently plays totally improvised solo piano recitals.

His creative voice is expressed in a large range of recordings including the incomparably virtuosic complete works for piano of George Enescu for the NAXOS Grand Piano label, Stravinsky’s “Les Noces” with Joann Falletta conducting, two chamber music discs for the German Audite label, the live, improvised León recital and beloved piano music of Schumann and Brahms for the IBS Classical Label. Next season will feature the premiere of his own piano concerto and releases of new recordings of Haydn Sonatas, and Piano Trios, Enescu's Complete Chamber Music, plus a disc of Czech piano music. His volume of poetry in 2021 titled "Las Grietas" was published by EDICTORALIA.

Josu De Solaun is a citizen of Spain and the United States, where he earned his doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music. His main musical influences in New York were pianists Nina Svetlanova and Horacio Gutierrez and composers Salvador Chuliá and Giampaolo Braccali. He also studied chamber music with Isidore Cohen. He resided in New York city from 1999 to 2019.

He currently resides in Madrid where he helped craft the entire performance curriculum to teach young artists from around the world at the Musical Arts Madrid academy.

Ilya Itin has performed with many of the world’s great conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Neemi Jarvi, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Yakov Kreizberg, Vassily Sinaisky, Valery Polyansky, and Mikhail Pletnev performing as soloist with orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Tokyo Symphony, the National Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the China National Symphony, the Symphony Orchestra of India; the Mexico City Philharmonic; and the Rochester Philharmonic.

Born in Yekaterinburg, Russia, his piano studies began at the Sverdlovsk School for the Gifted with Natalia Litvinova. He went on to graduate from the Moscow Conservatory with the highest honors in 1990 working with legendary teacher Lev Naumov. Mr. Itin won his first major piano competition while at the Conservatory, taking second place in the 1990 Russian National Rachmaninov Competition. Soon after, he won top honors in the William Kapell Competition, followed by First Prize, and the Special Chopin Prize at the Casadesus Competition (Cleveland Competition), and the Best Performance of a Work of Mozart, Best Prokofiev Performance, and Third Prize at the Gina Bachauer Competition.

Ilya Itin is on the teaching faculties of the Musashino Academy in Tokyo, the Academy of the Miami International Piano Festival and the Golandsky Institute at Princeton University. He has also taught in the piano departments of the Juilliard School prep and college divisions, Peabody Conservatory, and the Graduate Program at CUNY. Ilya Itin resides in Tokyo, Japan, and New York City where he maintains a private teaching studio.