Calendar

Oct
1
Fri
3rd Annual Fall Course Series Part 1 of 3, featuring Dr. Dylan Savage @ Ruggero Piano
Oct 1 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
3rd Annual Fall Course Series Part 1 of 3, featuring Dr. Dylan Savage @ Ruggero Piano

Dr. Savage will demonstrate stylistically correct performance practice of music in the Baroque and Classical periods using commonly-known intermediate, advanced-intermediate, and advanced level repertoire representing a wide range of composers. Playing numerous examples, Dr. Savage will cover: articulation, phrasing, dynamics, pedaling, ornamentation, tone quality, tempo markings, Urtext versus edited scores, expanded practices, and the reasons (musical logic) behind each. Additionally, he will demonstrate specific techniques for how to develop and practice different levels of articulation with a simple, easy-to-remember system. Known for his clear, fun, informal delivery which is jam-packed with information and helpful tips, Dr. Savage will welcome questions and audience interaction throughout the presentation.

About the Presenter 

Dylan Savage is a Bösendorfer Concert Artist, a Capstone Records Recording Artist, and a winner of the Rome Festival Orchestra Competition. He is author of the book The Transposed Musician: Teaching Universal Skills to Improve Performance and Benefit Life, GIA Publications. It is the first book to present a comprehensive and systematic method for teaching universal skills within the context of the music lesson. Dr. Savage is co-author of the piano pedagogy book A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers: Strategies to Develop the Mind and Body for Optimal Performance, Heritage Music Press. He is the author of numerous articles found in Clavier, Clavier Companion, American Music Teacher, and Pianoforte magazines.

Dr. Savage pioneered the use of slow-motion video analysis to help pianists improve performance and minimize injury. His research in biomechanics, wellness, and entrepreneurship has resulted in numerous master-classes at top music schools and national / international conferences. For decades, Savage has used live music performance to teach in-depth practices of universal skills and continuous improvement to people in non-music disciplines. Applying universal skills to the study of music and to life is the foundation of his studio teaching at UNCC. His work has been featured in television spots on NBC and PBS affiliates.

Dr. Savage is Professor of Piano at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He has degrees in piano from the Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Drawing inspiration from the outdoors, he can often be found skiing, hiking, biking, or canoeing.

About the Series – Creating Young Artists, Teaching Style for Students in Early Intermediate through Early Advanced Levels

We value the commitment of piano teachers to serve our students with professionalism and teaching expertise.  Committed to education, we proudly present this complimentary three lecture series on wellness. To ensure the health and safety of our clinicians and participants, this year’s programs will be available to attend in-person and via live stream.

Students who are available to participate due to flexible remote learning schedules are also welcome to attend! The live stream link will be available on our website at ruggeropiano.com  prior to each presentation. These workshops are complimentary – we invite you to join us in-person or via Live Stream!

Oct
15
Fri
3rd Annual Fall Course Series Part 2 of 3, featuring Dr. Vincent van Gelder @ Ruggero Piano
Oct 15 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
3rd Annual Fall Course Series Part 2 of 3, featuring Dr. Vincent van Gelder @ Ruggero Piano

The Romantic Era was an inevitable result of developments in the Classical era. In this presentation I will discuss, with examples, works by Beethoven, Clementi, and others that foreshadowed the era. This will be followed by a look at the specific stylistic traits of the era, as well as the boundaries of it. Pushing the boundaries would eventually lead to new styles. Another important part of the presentation will deal with the era’s developments in piano technique, piano schools (French, Russian), and how we can apply this to teaching intermediate to (early) advanced works to our students.

About the Presenter 

Dr. Vincent van Gelder was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

He has won top prizes in many national and international piano competitions, including the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition, New York Artist International Competition, and St. Louis Artist Presentation competition. He has performed in several countries in Europe, and in many states in the US, including a well-reviewed solo recital at Carnegie Hall. In 2008 he nearly lost the index finger to his left hand but thanks to a successful surgery he made a near full recovery. He has been a soloist with several orchestras. As a chamber pianist he performed with musicians like Dmitri Sitkovetski, members of the Ciompi Quartet, Red Clay Quartet, and his wife, Inara Zandmane. He has collaborated with several composers including the Argentinean composer Alejandro Rutty, who wrote a piano concerto for him that he premiered with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Symphony orchestra.

Recent highly acclaimed performances were in London, England and at the Van Cliburn Festival. Upcoming concerts include Harpa Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland where he will play the world premiere of one of his own works, a large multi movement piece based on Icelandic legends, this will be accompanied by art work from his 13 year old daughter, Natalie van Gelder.

Their new project “Ardenuir-The Stone in the Sword” will begin its world premiere later this year.

Vincent’s recordings have been played on radio and tv stations in the US as well as The Netherlands.

Dr. van Gelder studied in Holland, Latvia, and the US, receiving two masters and subsequently a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance, from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. His most influential teachers were Leslie Howard, Czerny-Stefanska, Teofils Bikis, Arnis Zandmanis, Wilfred Delphin, and Richard Cass.

He has been a member of the piano faculty at Duke University. He is founder and president of the Triad Institute for Young Musicians.

About the Series – Creating Young Artists, Teaching Style for Students in Early Intermediate through Early Advanced Levels

We value the commitment of piano teachers to serve our students with professionalism and teaching expertise.  Committed to education, we proudly present this complimentary three lecture series on wellness. To ensure the health and safety of our clinicians and participants, this year’s programs will be available to attend in-person and via live stream.

Students who are available to participate due to flexible remote learning schedules are also welcome to attend! The live stream link will be available on our website at ruggeropiano.com  prior to each presentation. These workshops are complimentary – we invite you to join us in-person or via Live Stream!

Oct
29
Fri
3rd Annual Fall Course Series Part 3 of 3, featuring Dr. John Salmon @ Ruggero Piano
Oct 29 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
3rd Annual Fall Course Series Part 3 of 3, featuring Dr. John Salmon @ Ruggero Piano

Sometimes younger piano students have a difficult time relating to musical styles of the 20th and 21st centuries. This workshop will present an array of “modern” compositions that might be appropriate and attractive to students in early intermediate through early advanced levels. An enormous variety of compositional idioms were used between 1900 and 2021: neoromantic, impressionistic, atonal, neoclassical, aleatoric, jazzy, and on and on. This workshop will cover an assortment of works from this time period, organized according to three difficulty levels—early/mid intermediate, mid intermediate/late intermediate, and early advanced. Composers of the canon, such as Bartók and Prokofiev, will be juxtaposed against lesser-known composers such as Nikolai Rakov (1908-1990) and distinguished composers of a younger generation such as Lera Auerbach (b. 1973). Piano music from Africa and the African diaspora, China, and the Americas will be covered as well. Of course, there is no way to cover 120 years of worthwhile music in a two-hour workshop. But, hopefully, this event will ignite curiosity and spark further exploration of this gigantic topic.

About the Presenter 

Pianist John Salmon (johnsalmon.com), on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has distinguished himself on four continents, as both a classical and jazz artist. His performances have been heard on many radio stations in the U.S., including National Public Radio, WNYC in New York, WFMT in Chicago, and KUSC in Los Angeles; and on the national radio stations of Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Ukraine. Salmon is a frequent guest performer at festivals in the U.S. and Europe, having appeared at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival (Charleston, South Carolina), Piano Festival Northwest (Portland, Oregon), Interlochen Piano Festival (Interlochen, Michigan), Festival for Creative Pianists (Denver, Colorado), Festival Internacional de Música del Mediterráneo (Cartagena, Spain), and the International Bartók Festival (Szombathely, Hungary). He has toured China six times, with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Hangzhou. Other special appearances include an all-Liszt recital in Mexico City for the American Liszt Society and an all-Brubeck recital in Washington, DC for the Music Teachers National Association, after which he jammed at two pianos with Dave Brubeck in a spontaneous version of Duke Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” He has also been the featured artist for the Music Teachers National Association state conferences in California (CAPMT), Virginia (VMTA), and Minnesota (MMTA). He has recorded four compact discs of Dave Brubeck’s classical piano music, on the Phoenix, Naxos, and Albany labels. Brubeck dedicated two compositions to Salmon—“The Salmon Strikes” and “Bach Again.” Salmon’s CD of piano pieces by Nikolai Kapustin is also on the Naxos label, and his CD of his own jazz compositions, Salmon Is A Jumpin’, was released by Albany Records in November 2010. As guest lecturer, Salmon has spoken on a wide array of topics including “Beethoven’s Shadow” (The Juilliard School), “September 1828: Schubert’s Last Three Piano Sonatas” (Boston Conservatory), and “Adding Notes to Classical Scores” (Conservatorio de Música, Morelia, Mexico). As author, he has covered such subjects as “What Brubeck Got From Milhaud” and “Urtext, que me veux tu?” and his articles have appeared in American Music Teacher, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Clavier, College Music Society Newsletter, Piano & Keyboard, and Piano Today. His book The Piano Sonatas of Carl Loewe is published by Peter Lang. Add On Bach (addonbach.com), called “playful, creative, and unique” by Clavier Companion, contains Salmon’s added lines, varied reprises, and cadenzas to keyboard works of J.S. Bach. Jazz Up the Inventions (jazzuptheinventions.com) and Jazz Up the Sinfonias (jazzupthesinfonias.com) have Salmon’s jazzy accompaniments to J.S. Bach’s Two-Part Inventions and Three-Part Inventions. Jazz Standards (salmonstandards.com) has his arrangements of twelve classic pieces from the American songbook, including “All of Me,” “Blue Moon,” and “Over the Rainbow.”

About the Series – Creating Young Artists, Teaching Style for Students in Early Intermediate through Early Advanced Levels

We value the commitment of piano teachers to serve our students with professionalism and teaching expertise.  Committed to education, we proudly present this complimentary three lecture series on wellness. To ensure the health and safety of our clinicians and participants, this year’s programs will be available to attend in-person and via live stream.

Students who are available to participate due to flexible remote learning schedules are also welcome to attend! The live stream link will be available on our website at ruggeropiano.com  prior to each presentation. These workshops are complimentary – we invite you to join us in-person or via Live Stream!

Oct
21
Fri
4th Annual Fall Course Series, Part 1 of 3 – Teaching Improvisation from the Beginning featuring Ed Paolantonio, Jazz Artist, Adjunct Faculty at Duke University @ Ruggero Piano
Oct 21 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
4th Annual Fall Course Series, Part 1 of 3 - Teaching Improvisation from the Beginning featuring Ed Paolantonio, Jazz Artist, Adjunct Faculty at Duke University @ Ruggero Piano

About the Series

Developing the Total Musician – Teaching Essential Skills: Improvisation, Accompanying, and Sight Reading

We value the commitment of piano teachers to serve our students with professionalism and teaching expertise.  Committed to education, we proudly present this complimentary three-part lecture series. To ensure the health and safety of our clinicians and participants, this year’s programs will be available to attend in-person and via live stream.

Students who are available to participate due to flexible remote learning schedules are also welcome to attend! The live stream link will be available on our website at ruggeropiano.com prior to each presentation. These workshops are complimentary – we invite you to join us in-person or via Live Stream!

About This Presentation

Developing the skills to teach Improvisation can seem mysterious. The necessary skills to encourage a love of improvisation can be enhanced with learning the scale and chord work to open up possibilities at the piano. Altering melodies with rhythm or re-phrasing the musical line will be demonstrated. Written harmonies can be embellished with scales! Teacher participation is encouraged for hands-on learning during the presentation.

About the Presenter 

Pianist Ed Paolantonio has been described as an “all consuming musician…(whose) solo struck sparks all around the room.” — Owen Cardle (News & Observer, Raleigh, NC) “He’s outstanding, …talented and prolific”, said R. C. Smith (Durham Morning Herald). Joe Vanderford (Spectator, Raleigh, NC) wrote of “Paolantonio’s sound … full of arpeggios, utilizing every one of the eighty-eights”.

Paolantonio hails from New York City, but lives now in Durham, NC. Besides earning a BS in Music Ed. from Suny Potsdam, and an MM. in Performance from UNC Chapel Hill, he studied 3½ years with world famous jazz pianist, teacher, and composer Lennie Tristano. He has been composing, arranging and performing jazz professionally since 1971, and has accompanied many jazz giants, including Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Clark Terry, Lee Konitz, Curtis Fuller, Jimmy Heath, Claudio Roditi, Tom Harrell, Woody Shaw and Emily Remler.

Paolantonio has toured North Carolina with jazz drummer Max Roach. As an artist on the NC Touring Program, he performed with his much-acclaimed jazz vocal group, String of Pearls. He toured the Middle East for USIA with vibraphonist Jon Metzger, and has been the recipient of two North Carolina Jazz Fellowship Awards and the Durham Emerging Artist Grant.

An excellent clinician, Paolantonio has served in schools and colleges in and out of state. He was a NC Artist in Residence for three years, and has taught jazz improvisation and history at North Carolina Central University, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke University, North Carolina State University, and Elon College. As an accompanist, Paolantonio’s recording credits include Baron Tymas’s CD “Insight at Midnight”; A Benny Goodman CD recorded for Elon College “Airmail Special”; Mike Waddell’s CD “Defining Moments”; a Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington CD recorded with the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra; Scott Sawyer’s CD, “In the Stream”; Group Sax’s three recordings “A New Level”, “All’s Well” and “Prime Time”; Karen Love’s CD “I Believe in Little Things”; and Dan Axelrod’s L.P. “New Axe” distributed on the Phoenix Record label.

Dedications, Paolantonio’s first CD, showcases his superb talent as a composer and arranger, and demonstrates his outstanding ability as a jazz improviser.

“Dad’s Blues” is Paolantonio’s second recording as a leader and is available through Ed’s web site:

(paoloproductions.com)

Oct
28
Fri
4th Annual Fall Course Series, Part 2 of 3 – Playing Well with Others: An Introduction to Collaborative Skills for Pianists featuring Dr. Allison Gagnon, Director of Collaborative Piano, UNCSA @ Ruggero Piano
Oct 28 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
4th Annual Fall Course Series, Part 2 of 3 - Playing Well with Others: An Introduction to Collaborative Skills for Pianists featuring Dr. Allison Gagnon, Director of Collaborative Piano, UNCSA @ Ruggero Piano

About the Series

Developing the Total Musician – Teaching Essential Skills: Improvisation, Accompanying, and Sight Reading

We value the commitment of piano teachers to serve our students with professionalism and teaching expertise.  Committed to education, we proudly present this complimentary three-part lecture series. To ensure the health and safety of our clinicians and participants, this year’s programs will be available to attend in-person and via live stream.

Students who are available to participate due to flexible remote learning schedules are also welcome to attend! The live stream link will be available on our website at ruggeropiano.com prior to each presentation. These workshops are complimentary – we invite you to join us in-person or via Live Stream!

About This Presentation

Pianists can be completely self-sufficient as musicians. There is a wealth of repertoire for piano solo. But there is so much more music in which pianists share the score with musical partners! Join Allison Gagnon in a workshop that explores collaborative skills for young pianists and introduces sample repertoire to teach these skills. Also included will be a discussion of the opportunities for student pianists who are equipped to share the music, whether with individual vocal and instrumental partners, or with a vocal or instrumental ensemble. The second part of the workshop may feature some work with teams of student participants. There will be time for questions and conversation throughout.

About the Presenter 

Canadian pianist Allison Gagnon directs the Collaborative Piano Program at University of North Carolina School of the Arts and concertizes with vocal and instrumental colleagues across the US and internationally. At UNCSA, she performs not only with faculty and students, but also with guest artists, including soprano Latonia Moore in the 2022-23 season. Before joining UNCSA in 1998 she was affiliated with two Canadian universities: Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. She was also a member of the piano staff at the Meadowmount School of Music in New York for almost 20 years.

A dedicated educator, Dr. Gagnon has twice received the UNCSA Excellence in Teaching Award (2014 and 2022). Graduates of the collaborative piano program she launched more than 20 years ago at UNCSA are active professionally across the US, in Canada and abroad. Her definitive edition of the piano reduction for Ernest Chausson’s Poème, Op. 25 for Violin and Orchestra has been published (www.encoremupub.com) and new reductions of two of Mozart’s instrumental concertos (K. 219 and K. 313) are in process, as are teaching materials in the field of collaborative piano pedagogy. Allison’s developing interest in the role of music in dementia care has led to a new dimension in her role as educator: since 2019 she has served as faculty mentor for the Music Between Us team of UNCSA’s ArtistCorps community engagement initiative, a project that provides interactive musicmaking in dementia care. In June 2022, the Music Between Us Program Guide was launched, available to all collegiate schools of music to inspire more such projects in communities beyond Winston-Salem.

Dr. Gagnon completed her DMA with Anne Epperson at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her earlier teachers were Dale Bartlett (McGill), Michael Krist (Vienna Hochschule fur Musik), Pierre Jasmin, and Margaret McLellan (Queen’s) and her mother Marjorie Gagnon. From CIM she holds the Brooks Smith Award of its Collaborative Piano Department. Her creative interests include ceramics and wildlife photography. Since 2015 she has served on NCMTA’s Executive Board, currently as Vice President for Membership.

Jan
13
Fri
4th Annual Fall Course Series, Part 3 of 3 – The Magical Methodology of Sight Reading featuring Dr. Kent Lyman, Professor of Piano, Meredith College @ Ruggero Piano
Jan 13 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
4th Annual Fall Course Series, Part 3 of 3 - The Magical Methodology of Sight Reading featuring Dr. Kent Lyman, Professor of Piano, Meredith College @ Ruggero Piano

About the Series

Developing the Total Musician – Teaching Essential Skills: Improvisation, Accompanying, and Sight Reading

We value the commitment of piano teachers to serve our students with professionalism and teaching expertise.  Committed to education, we proudly present this complimentary three-part lecture series. To ensure the health and safety of our clinicians and participants, this year’s programs will be available to attend in-person and via live stream.

Students who are available to participate due to flexible remote learning schedules are also welcome to attend! The live stream link will be available on our website at ruggeropiano.com prior to each presentation. These workshops are complimentary – we invite you to join us in-person or via Live Stream!

About This Presentation

In this presentation Dr. Lyman discusses some of the basic elements required for success in developing sight reading skills. The methods and materials presented and discussed may lead one to wonder whether success in sight reading really is magic, or whether it can be attained through rigorous application of proven principles

About the Presenter 

Dr. Kent Lyman is a Steinway Artist, and has distinguished himself as a soloist and chamber musician throughout much of the United States, in South Korea, China, Italy, and Brazil. He has performed and/or lectured in many venues, including the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, the National Conference of the Sonneck Society for American Music in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in Honolulu, among many others. For the last several summers, he has worked as the principal rehearsal pianist for the International Young Artists Project, based in Monte San Savino, Italy. This program provides opportunities for young singers to study and perform Italian opera and art song in Italy, under the tutelage of native speakers. He has made a number of trips to South Korea where he has taught master classes and performed as a soloist at universities and schools throughout the country, including Seoul National University, Sejong University, and many others. In May of 2018, he was invited to give a keynote lecture on using technology in piano teaching at the National Conference of the Korean Piano Pedagogy Association. He delivered the lecture in Korean, which he speaks fluently. During a concert tour of Asia in the fall of 2007, he added China to his list of international venues, with concerts and master classes at conservatories of music in Shenyang and Guangzhou. He has toured Brazil, where he performed at the University of Campinas, and served as the opening concert artist and as a judge for the 22nd annual Paulo Giovanini National Piano Competition in Araçatuba, Brazil.

He has appeared with a number of orchestras, including the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Raleigh Civic Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle (Raleigh, NC), the Broward Symphony Orchestra (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida) and the Florence Symphony Orchestra (South Carolina). As one of twelve nationally selected finalists, he has performed at the Chicago Symphony’s Ravinia Festival in master classes with Menahem Pressler, Leon Fleisher, and Misha Dichter. He has toured the East coast with the Piedmont Trio in performances of a program commemorating the centenary of the death of Clara Schumann. Mr. Lyman has recorded for the Centaur label, and can be heard on a CD performing chamber works of the late American composer Virgil Thomson. There are also a number of professionally produced videos that are available to view on Youtube, including one of the only known recordings of Korean piano music by Bang-ja Hurh, her suite entitled Pieces of Arirang.

Kent Lyman is currently Professor of Music and Coordinator of Piano Studies at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. A native of Utah, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana University in Bloomington, where he studied with James Tocco.

Customer Reviews

As an established piano teacher in Cary, I have sent many students and their families to Ruggero Pianos in Raleigh to purchase either a first piano or an upgrade. Ruggero does not disappoint! They have been attentive to the needs of the student and been conscious of the family budget. I count on Ruggero to help my studio build quality players by providing great pianos (both new and used) professional follow-up in tuning and warranty, and timely delivery. I always tell my students to go to Ruggero FIRST. They have a wide selection of new and used pianos and their prices are competitive. Many thanks Richard and Chris! - Dr. Carol Ann Barry, Piano Teacher

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