Music Educators Association of New Jersey

Mr. Isler will speak about Constance Keene and Bruce Hungerford as teachers as well as performers. The third person he will speak about is is the Swiss pianist Adrian Aeschbacher (1912-2002), a Schnabel student, who had quite a busy concert career in his young and middle years.  He made a lot of records, but never performed in this country. Mr. Isler considers him to be a fantastic Schumann player. Aeschbacher actually lived in Mr. Isler’s  grandparents' home in Berlin for a while when he first went there in 1932 to study with Schnabel.  At that time his father to be was a ten year old student of Aeschbacher.

Here is Mr. Isler’s  account of what recordings we can expect to hear:

“I have released recordings of all three of these pianists on my KASP Records label, and will play examples. The two KASP Aeschbacher CD's are from his 1950's era records on Deutsche Grammophon, and other labels (for which I obtained the rights). They have music of Schumann, Schubert and Beethoven. The Keene CD is a live, never before released recital she played in Houston in 1995. It includes the Rachmaninoff Corelli Variations, a MacDowell sonata and some short pieces by him as well as some short pieces of her husband, Abram Chasins, and (perhaps most important) her only recording of the Chopin Ballades. She also makes some comments to the audience. 

 There are three Hungerford recordings on the KASP label. The first two are never before released live recitals which are long enough to require two CD's each. The first is a five sonata, all-Beethoven recital which he played in Germany in 1965 . For me it is one of the all-time great recorded Beethoven recitals. The second Hungerford project is his last recital, given in Calgary a month and a half before he died in a 1977 auto accident. It has music of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. 

 The third Hungerford project is something I was hoping to find for over 20 years until someone posted a bit of it on Facebook two years ago. It's a DVD, a live, made for TV concert from East Germany in 1964 in which he plays the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto. I'm planning to play the first movement. This is the only known video of his playing and having been able to produce this DVD is one of the projects I'm proudest of. “

 Hope to see you there, this is going to be quite exciting!

If you would like to learn more about Don Isler, visit his website Here .

The 2019-20 Membership Directory has been uploaded to your Member Homepage. Log on and take a look.  Membership Chiar, Lisa Gonzaleaz, did a great job. Thank you Lisa!  It is listed under Downloadable Documents on your Member Homepage. You can view or Download. 

Come meet your colleagues and hear an inspiring presentation by legendary artist Jerome Lowenthal. There will be time to mingle and network after the meeting at our annual potluck buffet luncheon.  

PLEASE REPLY

RSVP by 10/10 to Rebecca Eng and Naomi Takagi at hospitality@mea-nj.org. Please let Rebecca and Naomi know what ready-to-serve dish you will be bringing.  

No time for cooking or shopping?  If you prefer, you can bring a $5 contribution to help defray the cost of hosting.  As MEA guests, friends of members are not expected  to contribute.

Treat a friend to this extra-special meeting and our wonderful Potluck Luncheon.
Friends of members eat for free!

 Jerome Lowenthal — concert pianist, chamber musician, and longtime revered Juilliard faculty member — will present a fascinating talk on the Neo-Classical Synthesis of Scriabin’s Sonata No. 6. Known as the “cursed” sonata, it is described as intense, dark, desolate, haunting, otherworldly and dark velvet all over. Mr. Lowenthal will uncover its secrets and shed a new light  on this mystical masterpiece.

Kelsey Lee, an eight-year student of Beatrice Long, was awarded the MEA-MJN College Scholarship for 2019. She will be studying piano performance at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.  She was a first-place winner in the MEA 2019 Annual Piano Competition, 2nd-place winner in 2017 and performed in the 2016 Young Artist Master Class.  She served as the piano accompanist for the Summit High School Concert Choir and Treble Choir from 2015, among other notable activities. Principal oboist for the Summit HS Wind Ensemble, Kelsey performed with the NJ All State Wind Ensemble and the NJ Youth Symphony Orchestra. She was also a 2019 National Merit Scholar.
Kelsey was awarded an MEA Camp Scholarship in 2018 and attended the two-week Interharmony International Music Festival in Germany. Read her write-up of this inspirational experience Here. 

The MEA-MJN (Mary Jean Nelson) Scholarship Fund relies solely on the generosity of our donors, matching contributions from employers, and music sales at the monthly MEA general meetings. MEA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) and all donations are tax-deductible. Making a contribution to the scholarship fund is a wonderful way to support aspiring musicians and perpetuate the beauty inherent in the arts. With your donation, you can also honor a person with congratulations (birthday, anniversary, graduation, etc.), get-well wishes, or in memoriam. Please help us continue our scholarship efforts!

 The MEA Scholarship Committee:  Sondra Tammam and Charlene Step, Co-chairs and
Sal Mallimo

 For more information on the scholarship program click Here.

 View the 2019 student compositions in a beautiful  booklet  which is available for current members to view/download.  Simply login to your  Member Homepage and look in the right-hand column under downloadable documents. Chair Kathy Knittel and  Christina Hansen did a great job putting this together!

To learn more about the Eric Steiner Original Composition Competition click Here.

All the Highlights for last season’s programs and events can be found under For Members/Highlights from our main menu.  Many thanks to all the writers, layout designers and photographers for bringing these great articles to our membership: Sophia Agranovich, Joan Bujacich, Lisa Gonzalez, Bertha Mandel, Nancy Modell, Beverly Shea and Charlene Step! If you are a great writer, photographer and/or good with graphic design using a program like Pages or Word and would like to find out how you can contribute, contact Joan Bujacich at website@mea-nj.org.

September 20, 2018: Homage to Bach
The Competition Committee performed  the repertoire from the 2019 Annual Piano Competition Syllabus (Highlights for this event are listed under the March.) 

October 18, 2018: Ingrid Clarfield
Keeping the Spark Alive and Still Learning After 50 Years: Pedagogical Tips from A to Z ingridclarfield.com

November 15, 2018: Juliana Osinchuk
Leonard Bernstein – the American Renaissance Man. Celebrating the Great Musician’s 100th Birthday linkedin.com/in/juliana-osinchuk-73b26b17

January 17, 2019: Jed Distler
The Golden Age of Pianism on Record www.jeddistler.com

February 21, 2019: Aaron Wunsch
Debussy and Visual Arts aaronwunsch.com

March 21, 2019: Joseph Kalichstein
Teachers Master Class juilliard.edu/music/faculty/kalichstein-joseph

April 18, 2019: Jeffrey Biegel
Modern Embellishments in Bach and Mozart jeffreybiegel.com

May 16, 2019: Adam Kent
Portraits of Barcelona — works by Catalan composers Federico Mompou and Manuel Blancafort adamkentmusic.com/about

June 13, 2019: Douglas Humpherys
Young Artist Master Class esm.rochester.edu/faculty/humpherys_douglas

Check out the  HIGHLIGHTS  FOR THIS MAGNIFICENT CLASS HERE! DOUGLAS HUMPHERY'S WORK WITH THESE TALENTED STUDENTS WAS 
INSPIRING AND MAGICAL. 

MASTER CLASS PROGRAM

Beethoven Sonata Opus 31, No. 2 : First Movement
Sunny Yu: Teacher, Ana Berchadsky

Un Sospiro, Etude No. 3, S. 144  by Liszt
Alyssa Zylberger:  Teacher, Sophia Agranovich

Nocturne Opus 38, No. 4 by Lowell Leibermann
Jasmine Meyer: Teacher, Julia Lam

Re: The YA Master Class Auditions were held on  June 1 at The County College of Morris. The judges were very impressed with all the candidates. Congratulations to the winners and their teachers. Joan Bujacich, Coordinator

The  Original Composition Festival was held at Caldwell University on May 5^th  at 2 p.m. This year's festival had the largest audience to date, it was quite inspiring! There were 26 original compositions performed this year. Many students who competed in the Eric Steiner Original Composition Competition also  performed and were awarded their trophies and certificates.  Five of the student compositions were for violin and piano and one was an electronic music performance piece! This was  a very exciting program with a lot of talented students performing.  Our esteemed judges were most impressed with the level of the compositions and the quality of the writing! Chair, Kathy Knittel, did a wonderful job organizing both the Eric Steiner Original Composition Competition and the Original Composition Festival.  Committee members Joan Bujacich, Lisa Gonzalez and Nancy Modell also were there to help in various capcaities, all making a great day of music! 

Congratulations to all the students and teachers who participated in this year’s piano competition, “Homage to Bach”.  The level of playing was of the highest standard, and the concert on March 17^th in the Leshowitz Recital Hall at Montclair State University was a great success. 

The teachers of the first, second and third place winners are:  Hyunjin Cho, Gloria Chu, Shinwen Chung, Rebecca Eng, David Iskowitz,  Anna Katznelson, Mansoon Kim, Ruth Kotik, Julia Lam, Yuhui Chloris Li, Florence Liu, Beatrice Long, Aziza Khasanova Madaski,  Marcia Maull, Eric Olson, Daniel Parente, Thomas Parente, Gena Raps, Youson Soheil, Stella Xu, Yuka Yanagi and Grace Yang.

Special thanks to the APC committee for all their hard work all year long: Barbara Landi Hause and Anna Katznelson -Co-Chairs, Ana Berschadsky, Rebecca Eng, Vicky Griswold, Florence Liu, Beatrice Long, Kai Pangune Kim, Youn-Hee Bang Kim, Ruth Kotik, Michelle Kuo, and Yuka Yanagi.

We are very grateful to the County College of Morris for hosting the competition in their beautiful Music Technology building, and to Montclair State University for the use of the lovely Leshowitz Recital Hall.

Special Note:  Be on the lookout for the new syllabus, to be posted on the MEA website by June 1.  The year 2020 marks the 50^th year of the APC, and the theme will be “50^th Anniversary: Best of Yesteryear”.   Tell your students to look forward to playing some of the greatest hits from the past 50 years!