In the midst of a financial crisis said to be the worst since the Great Depression, another nationwide concern among music teachers is the declining number of young people who are taking piano lessons.
“Students aren’t taking piano lessons, festivals are down in numbers, and piano teachers don’t have long waiting lists,” said Dr. Ouida Keck, professor of music at Ouachita Baptist University and the former president of the National Federation of Music Clubs. “This seems to be a trend across the country, and that frightens those of us in the arts who want to see this live for generations to come”
At Dr. Keck’s suggestion, the Arkadelphia Philharmonic Club, applied for and received a grant from the Ross Foundation to do something to reverse this trend. That “something” was to invite Naomi Sanchez and Stephen Varney, a widely praised California duo piano team — Pas de Duo — to come to Arkadelphia on April 16-17.
While here, they will interact with students in our four elementary schools — Central, Peake, Goza and Perritt — to promote awareness and present a public concert in OBU’s McBeth Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at OBU.
Their credentials are impressive:
• Won the $10,000 first prize in the 2005 National Federation of Music Club’s biennial competitions that concluded with a performance in New York’s Carnegie Hall.
• Received the Abild American Music Award and the Charles and Francis Christmann Award.
Won first prize at the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition.
• And made their highly acclaimed Carnegie Hall recital debut in 2006.
The New York Concert Review Magazine proclaimed the concert was “like a profusion of Roman Candles … on a New Year’s Eve celebration: The audience simply loved it.” Pas de Duo can be heard on the New York Philomusica label in a live performance of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.
They name themselves “Pas de Duo,” said Ms. Sanchez, because “it’s a play on pas de deux, which in ballet is when two people are dancing together. In a piano duo it’s as if we are two people ’dancing at the piano.’”
During a telephone interview a few days ago, I talked with Naomi and Stephen in their San Francisco studio.
Downs: Do you consider the decreasing numbers of piano students in America to be a matter of concern?
Naomi: Yes, I do think it is. During the 20th century, people had a piano in the home, which was the mark of middle-class America.
Stephen: Everyone went to piano lessons.
Naomi: But today, applied music is just not a priority. Even in California it’s been many years since schools have even had consistent band or orchestra programs. These are the first things to go when the budget cuts are made.
Downs: What do you think brought about this change?
Naomi: I think it could have been caused by many things. Family values change, both parents work and that makes it difficult to oversee practice schedules. You know, we just live a very different kind of lifestyle.
Stephen: Nowadays, both parents do not play the piano themselves. Generations before, I think, virtually all of the parents played the piano as they grew up or continued to play or had a piano in the home that was their mother’s. Over a period of time, however, that trend has slowly gone away.
Downs: With the passion I’ve been told you share in working with young musicians, what will you say to local students about the benefits of music study and why it is so important?
Stephen: You know, there are all kinds of benefits to the arts and creativity and cultivating self-discipline and motivation in the home. It also encourages good communication between the children and the parents, where today, you just drop your kids off to their soccer practice or to whatever activities they may have. But intense piano study really cultivates nice relationships between the students and their teachers and parents.
Downs: During the 45-minute assemblies at the schools I’m told that local students will perform and talk about the joys of studying piano and that you will play some duets and do some interactive things with the students to help them get excited about music. How will you do this?
Naomi: We’ll do fun, game show-type of interviews. We want to show that music does not have to be highfalutin’ because it’s not. Music does not have to be difficult to understand. That’s how we reach children when we teach our own students. We try to find music that they enjoy as well as expose them to Beethoven, Mozart and other great composers of times past.
Stephen: And we often point out similarities between today’s culture and what Beethoven or Bach were writing so children can see that the two are not so far apart after all.
Downs: Last question — what’s your program for Thursday night?
Naomi: The title of the program is called Macabre, and that’s because we will be playing Dance Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns., Les Preludes by Franz Liszt, A Masquerade Waltz by Aram Khachaturian, some Symphonic Dances by Rachmaninoff, Capriccio d’apres Le Bal masque by Francis Poulenc and Sentimiento by Manuel Infante. It should be quite exciting and hopefully crowd pleasing.
Next week: The last of a three-part interview with Bryan Hendricks, outdoor editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on threats against the Second Amendment.
Questions? Concerns? Contact Bill Downs: downsw@sbcglobal.net
