A delicate balance: a study of the professional lives of piano faculty in higher education

American Music Teacher, August-Sept, 2003 by Lynn Rice-See

Professor Stewart Gordon of the University of Southern California, author of Etudes for Piano Teachers and A History of Keyboard Literature, mentions having had mentors in each category: Walter Gieseking as the performer who also taught, Cecile Genhart as the teacher to whom regular performance was vital, Adele Marcus as the teacher who performed occasionally and Olga Samaroff as the teacher who performed seldom or never.

Performance Activities

Most faculty would like to adjust their solo performance schedule: While 28 percent find it ideal, 54 percent would like to do more and 18 percent expressed frustration at lack of practice time to maintain quality with their current schedule. In retrospect, I should have worded this question differently: It seems quite possible to fall into both of these last categories.

Respondents also commented on the time crunch created when both organizing and performing an ambitious schedule of recitals. Wayne Johnson of Seattle Pacific University remarks, "I had an agent for a while, and this made an enormous difference in my schedule and in successfully promoting my concerts in various venues. However, most managers are only interested in working with people who are full-time artists or have a national or international reputation--or who have won some recent competition."

There has long been a suspicion that faculty may cut back on professional activity, including performance, after earning tenure. The survey results do not bear this out.

Type of schools attended by respondents was one variable that showed significant correlation with level of solo performance. While the second largest group of those attending only colleges and universities selected "none," those earning all degrees at conservatories reported the most active schedules, while also reporting a larger number of those selecting "none" than those who attended both colleges/ universities and conservatories.

Many faculty have chosen to perform recitals from score rather than to curtail performance schedules due to time contraints. (5, 6) Jerome Reed of Lipscomb University is one who has chosen this option: "I decided that I had proved myself by playing long, solo recitals from memory for many years. I've also played many concertos from memory. For me, memory work is arduous and it takes so much time from other things--even the chance to learn more music--that for now I've decided to learn more music without worrying about the memory aspect. Again, at some point I will probably go back to playing from memory."

Gail Berenson, NCTM, of Ohio University agrees: "As people reach senior status at their teaching institution, their responsibilities grow, and it becomes more and more difficult to fit in sufficient practice time to feel secure performing solo repertoire in recital by memory. There still exists a stigma about performing using score. Perhaps it is time that was changed.... I finally decided that given the amount of collaborative performances I do, the writing and the committee work, along with my full teaching load, I simply cannot devote enough time to perform a solo recital from memory."