API Teacher Forum
A unique forum for teachers of piano exploring creative approaches to piano pedagogy
As part of our annual Summer Festival, API is proud to present the API Teacher Forum: a unique gathering of teachers and performers to explore creativity in our teaching. Through interpersonal communication and sharing our love of music, we create a spontaneous environment of mutual learning. The participants and observers will experience the widening of our awareness and understanding of this process. New insights are limitless and have the potential to enhance your love of music, your teaching, and your quality of life.
Click here to register for the Teacher Forum
Teacher Forum 2024 program
The Arizona Piano Institute will hold its 3rd Teacher Forum during the week of June 2-8, 2024 (alongside the API Summer Festival), and we welcome your participation.
This year’s theme, “The Art of Listening”, will be the foundation of exploring how listening is the catalyst of meaningful communication between us and our students and how we connect and hear the music we play. In the previous two years, we have explored the language, motivation, and purpose of our teaching in order to enrich our learning and share this great art with our students and community.
Our ensuing discussions have clarified that we desire to develop and establish more refined listening skills to better experience the universality of music. This includes specific examples of interpretation involving the role of rhythm, pulse, structure, sound, voicing, dynamics, harmony, conceptual unity, historic styles, and the technique to realize these entities. We will also explore how various interpretations can have validity and significance in creating transcendent beauty.
We will again include observation of lessons given by API faculty members Elisabeth Pridonoff, Eckart Selheim, Dian Baker, and guest artist Aviram Reichart. Various topics and pedagogical questions will be part of an open discussion to help us understand challenges that we have at every level of performing and teaching. These will include the following:
What is the difference between listening and hearing?
What are the most important traits in an exceptional piano teacher?
What criteria can one use to choose repertoire to nurture and support the development of young pianists while preparing them for competitions?
How do we encourage students to read the music and fully absorb the details before committing it to memory?
As the audiences for classical music continue to shrink, what can we do as educators to inspire students, parents, friends, and the general public to attend concerts and to support the arts?
This year we will begin our journey of exploring the art of listening with a correspondence on a private Facebook page. We encourage you to take a week to gather your own observations on the subject in our daily teaching. This might include how we listen as teachers, how we guide the conversations with our students, and how our students listen. Once you register for the Teacher Forum, please join the Facebook page and share your observations there, starting on May 18, 2024. To join the Facebook page, click here.
Teacher Forum presenter
The Teacher Forum will be led by Eugene Pridonoff, Professor Emeritus of Piano at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati and former Professor of Piano and Artist-in-Residence at Arizona State University began advocating collaborative teaching at ASU in the mid 1970s and helped establish the DMA in Performance. His many years of collaborative performing and teaching helped shape the piano programs at both ASU and the University of Cincinnati.
When does the API Teacher Forum take place?
The API Teacher Forum takes place alongside the API Summer Festival, hosted this year at Phoenix College, in central Phoenix. The Teacher Forum will meet on June 3, 5, and 7, between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm. You can register for one or two sessions, or all three. The cost of attending the API Teacher Forum is $40 per session or $100 for all three sessions. To register for the API Teacher Forum, submit the registration form below and then proceed to pay the registration fee.
Participants in the API Teacher Forum may also partake of any of the many Summer Festival 2024 activities, including the Faculty Artist Recital, master classes, workshops, and the Student Recital.
Testimonials from previous API Teacher Forums
“I just wanted you to know what a positive and motivational experience participating in the Teacher Forum was for me.”
– Kathyrn Rood
“The classes were also very motivating to me and I think it was nice to see that many of us have the same struggles and successes.”
– Jennifer Hoppe
“The Arizona Piano Institute’s Teacher Forum, held at Festival 2022 and expertly led by Professor Eugene Pridonoff, provided an important means for active round table discussion on a variety of important topics of interest to the local teachers in attendance. A very motivational experience, the practical sessions inspired us all, and we left wishing for more opportunities of this type. We shared our viewpoints on pedagogical topics and experiences. I gained a renewed sense of professional purpose through the sharing of many ideas, concerns, and experiences.”
– Ann Nagell DMA
“It was refreshing to connect with other passionate educators who were just as enthusiastic about piano teaching as I am. Professor Pridonoff masterfully led insightful and informative discussions. I gained a wealth of knowledge and ideas that I can use to enhance my teaching and benefit my students.”
– Snezana Krstic
Teacher Forum Registration
Proceed with enrolling in the Teacher Forum by filling out and submitting the form below, and then clicking on the “Pay Registration Fee” button to complete the enrollment.
Click on the button below to proceed with paying for enrolling in the Teacher Forum. Clicking the button will direct you to the online store, where you can look for the appropriate payment option: Single Session (you can pay for one or two sessions) or All Week (which covers all three sessions at a discount).