The 4th annual Performathon was an incredible accomplishment from the efforts of 7 New Jersey Piano Studios. We worked with team captains from the studios of Mr. Gallagher, Dr. Chiu-Ling Lin, Mrs. Chiu-tze Lin, Mrs. Chang Liu, and Mr. Woo and planned 5 separate recitals. Because of the magnitude of this event, we held meetings every weekend to go over the week’s agenda and work that needed to be done; this ranged from planning publicity and flyers to discussing the format of each recital and the best ways to raise money. The performathon fundraising began with online donations and then offline donations during the recitals and matching by companies. In total, we have raised $10,892; $5,475 from online donations and $5,417 from in person/matching donations. We are immensely grateful for the support from the students, teachers, and community for helping us give back to the community through music and share our love for finding the greater meaning in learning music. This event also wouldn’t have been possible without the valuable support from Mr. Bob Rinaldi and Jacobs Music.To visit our fundraising page, please go to this link: https://chop.donordrive.com/campaign/Performathon-for-CHOP
Town topics also published an article about the Performathon Here
Virtual Performathon for CHOP 2020
In order to give back to the community, the studios of Professor Ingrid Clarfield and Mr. Todd Simmons annually hold a performathon, a fundraising piano concert. We hope to spread joy through music while being able to raise money for a great cause at the same time. The cause we are supporting is the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, or CHOP, which is a charitable and non-profit hospital. Specifically, we are supporting The Children’s Fund, which helps CHOP respond to anything unexpected that might come up.
Before the hardworking students play at the performathon, they raise money for CHOP, whether it be through online links, door to door fundraising, and more. Then everyone comes together at the performathon which is free and open to the public, where people can come enjoy the music (although of course with donations if they wish).
Due to the pandemic, this year’s performathon was held virtually, and students submitted videos of themselves performing. While donations have not been finalized, $3,350 has been raised by the performers and their family and friends. After company matching, the grand total that will be donated to CHOP thus far is $7,550. Jacqueline Chen, Alyssa Xu, and Liz Nielsen were co-chairs of this year’s event. Jacqueline and Alyssa are piano students of Professor Clarfield, and Liz is a piano student of Mr. Simmons.
The wonderful students that played in this year’s performathon are: Averie Wu, Parth Gupta, Mackenzie Leung, Arielle Chen, Rachel Herway, Sarah Chen, Mary Nielsen, Taksh Gupta, Gracelynne Hao, Kenneth Fan, Effie Li, Liz Nielsen, Alyssa Xu, Talia Black, Amber Wang, Jennifer Liu, Jacqueline Chen, Sammi Li, and Effie Li.
Clarfield Annual Winter Studio Recital
December 19, 2015
Williamson Hall
Westminster Choir College
Sonata in Eb Major, Hob. XVI:25 Moderato
The Lark
Haydn
Glinka-Balakirev
Jacqueline Chen
Nocturne in C# minor, Op. Posth.
Chopin
Sonata in Eb Major, K. 282 Allegro
Mozart
Taksh Gupta
Berceuse, Op. 57
Chopin
The Fountain of the Acqua Paola
Griffes
Beatrice Liang-Gilman
Sonata in C Major, K. 545
Mozart
Waltz in C# minor, Op. 62, No. 2
Chopin
Gracelynne Hao
Sonata in Bb Major, Op. 22 Allegretto
Beethoven
Jackie Hua
Toccata
Poulenc
Etude in E Major, Op. 10, No. 3
Chopin
Jennifer Liu
Sonata in D Major, K. 311 Allegro con spirito
Mozart
Impromptu in Ab Major, Op. 29
Chopin
Amber Liu*
La Plus Que Lente
Debussy
Sonata in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3 Allegro assai
Beethoven
Sammi Li
Prelude in B minor, Op. 32, No. 1
Rachmaninoff
Sonata in F minor, Op. 57 Allegro assai
Beethoven
Anand Nanduri
* Also student of Chang Liu
≈ Intermission ≈
Sonata in Bb Major, Op. 24, No. 2 Allegro con brio
Clementi
Suite de Danzas Criollas, Op. 15 Adagietto pianissimo
Allegro rustico
Allegretto cantabile
Calmo e poetico
Scherzando; Coda
Ginastera
Sara Liu
Ballade in G minor, Op. 23
Chopin
Charlie Liu
Ricercare and Toccata
Menotti
Sonata in C Major, Op. 53 Allegro con brio
Beethoven
Sharon Jin
Poissons d’or (Goldfish)
Debussy
Sonata in B minor, Op. 58 Finale
Chopin
Vivian Xu
Nocturne No. 4
Liebermann
Sonata in F Minor, Op. 57 Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven
Yanjie Qiu
Clarfield Annual Winter Studio Recital
Video Excerpts
Dedication to Excellence: An Interview with Ingrid Clarfield
March/April 2015
Clavier Companion
by Sam Holland
Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield has given lecturerecitals, workshops, and master classes in more than a hundred cities across America, including many at state and national conferences of the Music Teachers National Association. She has presented master classes and pedagogy sessions at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the TCU/Van Cliburn Institute, the National Piano Teachers Institute, the Music Teachers Association of California, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, and the Calgary Arts Summer School in Alberta, Canada.
Ms. Clarfield serves as Professor of Piano and Coordinator of the Piano Department at Westminster Choir College of Rider University and has directed Westminster’s Piano Week for High School Students since 1984. In 2012, she was honored as the Musical Teachers National Association Teacher of the Year.
The documentary film Take a Bow (2011) tells the inspirational story of her tenacious fight back to teaching after a devastating stroke.
We sat down to this interview via FaceTime™ on the weekend following Thanksgiving 2014. And what follows is a glimpse into her background, passions, philosophies, and practical experience as one of the most successful piano teachers in America.
Rider University Piano Professor Finds Way to Continue Performing After Stroke
August 25, 2014
NJ.com
Ingrid Clarfield has a waiting list of more than 25 pianists eager to audition for her, young musicians who long to become one of her 12 private piano students should a spot open up.
Known as much for her unparalleled passion for music and teaching as she is for her mastery of the piano, Clarfield is described by friends and colleagues as vivacious, dynamic and just a little bit outrageous.
“She is a character,” says Victoria Chow, a former student who first met Clarfield at the age of 10 while at a piano camp. “From her, I learned that piano and music can really come alive.”
But in March 2007, after about four decades teaching her piano students to play with joy, the music nearly ended.
Clarfield had just returned to her Princeton home from a national conference in Toronto. Feeling tired, she quickly went to bed. At 4 a.m., she awoke and suddenly collapsed on the floor, the victim of a massive stroke. The attack left much of Clarfield’s left side paralyzed. Her first concern, however, was not about whether she would walk again.
“My first thought was, ‘Will I play again?’ ” she says, “because that is my life.”
Following the stroke, Clarfield, now 67, spent months in therapy, relearning how to walk, how to dress, how to manage all the basic skills she previously had taken for granted. As time went on, however, it became clear that she would not regain significant use of her left hand.
So Clarfield did what she had to do to continue playing. She found herself a “guest left hand.”
17 YEAR OLD AWARD WINNING PIANIST PRESENTS FREE RECITAL ON JUNE 1 AT PRINCETON LANDING TO PREPARE FOR INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITIONS
June 1, 2014
Princeton Landing
David Geng, 17, a high school junior at West Windsor Plainsboro High School South, resides in Princeton, NJ. For six years he was a resident of Princeton Landing. David has been playing piano for 10 years and studies with Ingrid Clarfield, Professor of Piano at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, who lives in Princeton Landing. David has enjoyed performing for several years at the annual Princeton Landing Art Show.
In addition, David has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and Alice Tully Hall multiple times. He won 1st prize at both the 2014 Steinway Society of New Jersey Piano Competition and the 2013 Piano Teacher’s Congress of New York Competition, and Westchester University Piano Competition. In past years he has won numerous awards sponsored by NJMTA and other state and local organizations. In 2012, David was also selected to perform in a Master Class for world-renowned pianist, Jon Nakamatsu at TCNJ.
Last year, David decided to branch out and compete in International Competitions. He was a Semi-Finalist in the 2013 Kaufman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition, and won 3rd Prize in both the 10th LISMA Foundation International Music Competition in New York and the 2014 Dubois International Piano Competition in Bowling Green, Ohio. This year, David was selected as a Semi-Finalist for the IIYM International Piano Competition in Kansas, in July, and as one of 20 participants for the Southeastern Piano Festival and Arthur Fraser International Concerto Competition in South Carolina in June.
The program will include music of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Ravel and Messaien. His performances of Ravel’s Ondine and Liszt’s La Campanella have already won him numerous accolades.
Aside from piano, David enjoys math, running, and good movies. He is looking forward to giving this recital for the members of the community and as a way to prepare for his upcoming competitions in June and July. He is grateful to his teacher, Professor Clarfield, and Board Members, Mari Molenaar and Philip Blocker, for giving him this opportunity!
THE RECITAL ON JUNE 1 AT 6 IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!!
PROFFESOR CLARFIELD WILL WEAR MANY HATS (not her usual funky ones)
AT THE MTNA NATIONAL CONFERECE IN DISNEYLAND IN CALIFORNIA
March 9, 2013
Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA
Professor Clarfield is thrilled to announce that her 12 year old student, Bryan Tong, will be competing on March 9, at the Finals of the MTNA Junior Piano Competition (ages 11-14) which will be held at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California (much to Bryan's great joy!). Bryan was selected after winning the State level competition in November, and then winning the Eastern Division, consisting of the 13 states in the Division. His program includes music of Haydn, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. Please see pictures below of Bryan warming up before playing his program in Maryland. (Yes, in one he's playing with a Rubick'e cube, and the other he's killing zombies!!!
In addition, Mrs Clarfield was invited to be the Artist Teacher for the Intermediate Master Class at the Conference. She is only the second person ever invited back for this honor. She will work with four students from California and Arizona playing music of Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Turina.
Professor Clarfield was also invited back to do a panel with her esteemed pedagogues, Randall Faber and Scott McBride Smith, that she first organized in 2008 entitled Got Questions? This year's panel will also also include Peter Jutras, Editor of Clavier – Companion, who had been a High School Piano Camper at WCC.
Mrs C will also get to wear her author/editor hat when she and Mrs Lehrer present Books 4 and 5 of their new series, Classics for the Developing Pianist, at the Alfred Showcase.
Clarfield Studio Benefit Recital
for Hurricane Sandy Victims
December 15, 2012
Williamson Hall
Westminster Choir College
Medley from "The Nutcracker Suite"
Tchaikovsky-Olson
Sarah Liu and Fei Fei Tang
Ballade
Debussy
Sonata in f Op. 2 No Prestissimo
Beethoven
Jackie Hua
Impromptu No. 1 in Ab, Op. 29
Chopin
Cat and the Mouse
Copland
Sarah Liu
Sonata in d minor, Op. 31 No. 2 Allegretto
Beethoven
Scherzo Op. 6 No. 3
Griffes
Yanjie Qiu
The Maiden and the Nightingale
Granados
Sonata in A Op. 2 No. 2 Allegro vivace
Beethoven
Sharon Jin
Sonata in C, Op. 53 Allegro con brio
Beethoven
Rhapsody in Eb, Op. 119 No. 4
Brahms
Vincent Li
Sonata in Eb, Op. 7 Allegro molto e con brio
Beethoven
Prelude in Bb, Op. 23 No. 2
Rachmaninoff
Anand Nanduri
Nocturne in Eb, Op. 55 No. 2
Chopin
Sonata No. 6
Prokofiev Vivace
Bryan Tong
≈ Intermission ≈
Preludes Op. 11 No. 13 + No. 14
Scriabin
L’Isle Joyeuse
Debussy
Vivian Xu
Nocturne in Db, Op. 27 No. 2
Chopin
La Campanella
Liszt
Charlie Liu
Sonata in E, Op. 90
Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durhaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck
Beethoven
Cantique d’amour (Song of Love)
Liszt
Ralles Liu
Ballade No. 4 in F minor
Chopin
Sonata No. 7 Precipitato
Prokofiev
David Geng
Prelude in Eb, minor (WTC I)
Bach
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
Liszt
Christine Kim
Studio of Ingrid Clarfield Spring Recital
June 2012
Williamson Hall
Westminster Choir College
Ingrid Clarfield received the 2012 MTNA Teacher of the Year Award!
Ingrid Clarfield Mack presented her husband, Mel Mack,
2012 Husband of the Year (and my life award) at the MTNA Awards Brunch
Music Teachers National Association National Conference
March 24-29, 2012
Hilton Hotel
New York City, NY
Clarfield Studio Winter Holiday Recital
December 17, 2011
Williamson Hall
Westminster Choir College
Jingle Bells
Pierpoint/Bober
Sarah Liu and Ralles Liu
Sonata in E-flat, Hob. XVI:25
Moderato
Haydn
Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes)
Liszt
Charlie Liu
Etude in E Major, Op. 10, No. 3
Chopin
Toccata
Poulenc
Beatrice Liang-Gilman
Sonata in B-flat, Hob. XVI:44
Allegro
Haydn
Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. Posth.
Chopin
Sarah Liu
Sonata in C, Op. 2, No. 3
Allegro Assai
Beethoven
Elegy, Op.3, No. 1
Rachmaninoff
Bryan Tong
Sonata in G, Op. 31, No. 1
Allegro Vivace
Beethoven
Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5
Rachmaninoff
Yanjie Qiu
Sonata in B-flat Major, Op. 22
Allegro con brio
Beethoven
Sonetto 104 del Petrarca
Liszt
Vincent Li
Reflets dans l’eau (from Images)
Debussy
Etude de Sonorite
Morel
David Hua
≈ Intermission ≈
Berceuse (Lullaby from Dolly Suite)
Fauré
Sarah Liu and Pana Oh
Prelude in B-flat minor (WTC I)
Bach
Sonata in E-flat, Op. 81a
Wiedersehen: Vivacissimamente
Beethoven
Amanda Li
Sonata in C, Op. 2, No. 3
Allegro con brio
Beethoven
Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14
Mendelssohn
Vivian Xu
Sonata in Eb Major, Op. 7
Allegro molto e con brio
Beethoven
Prelude in Bb Major, Op. 23, No. 2
Rachmaninoff
Ralles Liu
Sonata in E-flat, Op. 31, No. 3
Scherzo: Allegretto Vivace
Beethoven
Sonetto 123 del Petrarca
Liszt
Christine Kim
Sonata in C., Op. 53
Allegro con brio
Beethoven
Concerto Paraphrase of Verdi’s Rigoletto
Liszt
David Geng
World Renowned Piano Professor Ingrid Clarfield Presented Master Class
For Talented Piano Students
In the Recital Hall of Jacobs Music Company - Lawrenceville, NJ
To Benefit Damien Dixon Memorial Piano Scholarship Program
Photo Credit: Sharla Feldscher
Lawrenceville, NJ (December 7, 2011) – On Saturday, December 4, 2011, Professor Ingrid Clarfield, known nationwide for her vibrant style of piano teaching, presented a Master Class to a sold-out crowd in the Recital Hall of Jacobs Music Company in Lawrenceville, NJ. It was a benefit for the Damien Dixon Memorial Piano Scholarship. Clarfield, author as well as Professor of Piano at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, worked with several students included in this photo.
From left to right are: Vivian Tsai, 14, of Holmdel, NJ; Grace Xiong, 10, of Plainsboro, NJ; Dennis Cheng, 15, of Morganville, NJ; Amanda Cheng, 13, Mendham, NJ; Irene Koc, 14, of Bridgewater, NJ; Professor Ingrid Clarfield of Princeton, NJ; and Amanda Liu, 14.
For followers of Clarfield’s career, the event was an opportunity to applaud the pianist’s tenacious fight back to teaching after a debilitating stroke four years ago. The story of Clarfield’s commitment to her health, her music and her students is the subject of an inspirational new documentary entitled “Take A Bow,” which traces Clarfield’s recovery.
The master class is one of dozens of high caliber music events taking place monthly at Jacobs Music Company, owned by the Rinaldi family of New Jersey. “Supporting and fostering active music-making has been an integral part of our mission for over a century,” said Mark Love, Senior Vice-President of Development for Jacobs Music Company. “It’s who we are as a company and how the Rinaldis think as a family. In the words of our Chairman Al Rinaldi, ‘A life without music is a life without meaning’.”
The Jacobs Music Company has six showrooms, including its flagship location at 1718 Chestnut Street in center city Philadelphia. Other regional piano showrooms are located in Cherry Hill, NJ, Willow Grove and Whitehall, PA, and Wilmington, Delaware. Jacobs Music is the area’s exclusive representative for Steinway & Sons, and Steinway’s Boston piano. Jacobs also represents many other quality piano manufacturers from around the world, including Yamaha, Disklavier and Clavinova. Further information is available on their website www.Jacobsmusic.com. The Lawrenceville store is located at 2540 Brunswick Pike and can be reached by calling (609) 434-0222.
‘You don’t give up. You just keep looking for new and different ways to improve.’
Source:Princeton Packet Date Posted: Monday, December 5, 2011 3:43 PM EST
By Michele Alperin Special Writer
Imagine a gifted piano teacher who combines humor, empathy, and a magnificent stage presence and who teaches not only her own students but piano teachers across the nation. Then consider the implications of a stroke that paralyzes the left side of her body and reduces her left hand to immobility.
In March of the year she turned 60, master piano teacher Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield did not feel well after returning from a national conference of music educators in Toronto, and at 4 the next morning she collapsed from a stroke on the way to the bathroom. But the feistiness that helped her overcome the limitations imposed by the stroke was probably encapsulated in her reaction to the resident at the Princeton Medical Center who told her what had happened to her. She remembers yelling at him, “Don’t say something stupid like that.”
What had begun as weakness on her left side progressed to paralysis, and she spent seven-and-a-half weeks in the St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Center. Instead of giving in to the despair she often felt, Ms. Clarfield gave herself six months to get back to her career at Westminster Choir College and be able to drive herself to work. And she succeeded.
The career that awaited Ms. Clarfield’s return involved teaching a select group of piano students, teaching pedagogy at Westminster, doing lecture demonstrations at national conferences, offering master classes to piano teachers across the country, and writing books. Before the stroke she had also performed for 30 years on two pianos with her best friend, Lillian Livingston.
A generally very upbeat person, Ms. Clarfield experienced horrible depression in the face of her stroke, but with the support of her husband Mel Mack, friends, and the therapists at the center, she was able to reawaken her native optimism. Every morning her husband came at 7 with a cup of coffee and helped her put in her contact lenses, and within the first week Yamaha sent her a keyboard that kept her brain engaged.
”Sometimes I would play with my right hand and imagine my left hand,” she says, “and sometimes friends would come and play the left hand.”
Ms. Clarfield developed close relationships with her therapists at the center but was also very demanding. Setting daily goals, including the editing of her book “Keys to Artistic Performance,” she was enraged if someone showed up late for a therapy appointment, of which she had many — for example, physical therapy to learn to walk and occupational therapy to regain use of her left hand.
When it came to recreational therapy, she put her foot down at knitting and arts and crafts and instead learned to type with one hand and put on makeup. She also kept firing speech therapists until she found one who offered activities relevant to her recovery: “I finally got a speech therapist who was smart enough to study my website. She said, ‘Name five things you need to pack to go to a conference.’”
Paradoxically the hardest part for Ms. Clarfield was coming home. Still in a wheelchair, she remembers feeling overwhelmed and not being able to get out of bed without her husband’s help. Slowly but surely she shed the wheelchair and ultimately traded in the quad cane for a dozen canes in different colors that match her outfits.
Before returning to work, she had to relearn driving, using a car equipped with a knob. “It’s a major thing if you have a stroke: Not to have to rely on other people to get you places,” she says.
Luckily Westminster at Rider University was also willing to make the changes she would need to do her work.
Ms. Clarfield has always known she wanted to be a musician. She first studied with her uncle, who died when she was 10, and then with Michael Field, part of a famous two-piano team, who ultimately decided to give up the piano for cooking. When she was playing concertos, and he was whipping soufflé in the background, she decided it was time to enter the Juilliard precollege program.
At Juilliard she loved her fellow students, but her teacher was very negative. She recalls, “He literally told me I was the worst student at Juilliard and that he didn’t know how I was accepted.” Although he later explained that his goal had been to motivate her, what he left her with was a determination to be a different sort of teacher.
Ms. Clarfield says, “There’s an old saying that teachers teach like they were taught. In my case, I decided to teach exactly the opposite of the way he taught.”
Ms. Clarfield focuses on what is good in her students’ playing.
”It’s not false praise; it’s very specific,” she says. Her goal is to keep their egos intact while criticizing them musically. “I make sure they feel good about themselves in the process,” she says. “If a student’s ego is crushed, how are they going to project the character, mood, and love of the music?”
From her teacher at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, John Perry, now a world-renowned pedagogue, she learned about balancing a demanding approach to music with sensitivity to individual needs.
”He was extremely critical to the most-minute detail, but I always knew he cared about me as an individual,” she says. “He knew I wasn’t a superstar, but I felt his confidence in me as a musician.”
What she took with her was the importance of seeing each student as a whole person. “When that student walks out of the door, they have a whole life outside of piano, and you’ve got to keep that in mind,” says Ms. Clarfield.
After earning a master’s degree in music from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, she taught technique and gave private and group lessons in a sabbatical position SUNY-Geneseo.
Even at the beginning of her career Ms. Clarfield recognized the value of preparing her students to perform. “It is about sharing their love of music,” she says. Contrasting her young musicians to children interested in sports, she adds, “Music is their way of expressing themselves; it is about showing who they are.”
Whereas she recognizes the importance of teaching basic technique — how to produce sound — she emphasizes that correct technique is not sufficient for performance. “For me music is all about expressing the emotions of music: What is the composer trying to say? Does a piece reflect joy, sadness, drama, intimacy?”
Referring to the documentary about her life and music, “Take a Bow: The Ingrid Clarfield Story,” she continues, “What you see in the movie is that I’m a firm believer that you have to project physically for the audience the emotions of the music. You can play all the right notes, but if audience doesn’t feel the humanity in Haydn, or the drama and orchestral sound in a Beethoven sonata, or the imagery in Debussy ... It’s much more than just the right notes, and it needs to begin at the very early stages of learning.”
Ms. Clarfield first achieved national renown in 1990 when her student Damien Dixon won the junior performance competition at the Music Teachers National Association. “When you have a national winner,” she says, “everybody goes, ‘Wow’!”
In fact, his imaginative performance so impressed a teacher in Calgary, Alberta, that he invited Ms. Clarfield to a big conference to share her techniques with other piano teachers. She returned often and started a summer program there than she did for 11 years.
By now, she has worked in more than 100 cities around North America, either doing lecture recitals on a variety of topics like teaching sonatas, preparing students for auditions, and musical expression, or doing master classes for students of varying ages and levels before an audience. “I want to make the audience part of the process,” she says. “They are all teachers and have opinions. It’s not about me; it’s about the music and the kid.”
After moving to New Jersey in 1972, Ms. Clarfield taught for a few years at the Monmouth Conservatory and did music therapy for 10 years at the Children’s Psychiatric Center in Eatontown, where she had developed her own program. In 1982 she came to the Westminster Conservatory of Music at Rider University, which she loves.
”I’m truly blessed to be at a school where every day I get to do exactly what I love to do — working with talented young musicians.”
As she has won back her career, Ms. Clarfield has overcome many challenges — learning to travel alone; doing lecture demonstrations with another pianist playing the left hand; teaching a master class alone — and she continues to chart her tiny steps forward. Just over the last three months, for example, she has been able to turn her left hand enough to clap and actually produce a noise when she does so, a hard-won improvement after three years of pounding her cane.
”You don’t give up,” she says. “You just keep looking for new and different ways to improve.”
Ingrid Clarfield presents a master class with exceptionally talented young pianists in the intimate Recital Hall in Jacobs Music Company, 2540 Brunswick Pike , Lawrence, on Saturday, Dec. 3 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. The program combines a concert with a musical seminar and recital. Students of six highly-admired New Jersey piano teachers will perform. The young artists being presented are students of prominent regional piano teachers Larissa Korkina, Julia Lam, Phyllis Lehrer, Chiu-Tze Lin, Lillian Livingston and Veda Zuponcic.
General admission tickets are $20; student tickets are $10. Space is limited and reservations and tickets are required. For more information on this and other performances at Jacobs Music Company in Lawrence, call 609-434-0222.
World Renowned Piano Professor Ingrid Clarfield Presented Master Class
For Talented Piano Students
In the Recital Hall of Jacobs Music Company - Lawrenceville, NJ
To Benefit Damien Dixon Memorial Piano Scholarship Program
Contact: Sharla Feldscher Public Relations Date Posted: December 7, 2011
Lawrenceville, NJ (December 7, 2011) – On Saturday, December 4, 2011, Professor Ingrid Clarfield, known nationwide for her vibrant style of teaching, presented a Master Class to a sold-out crowd in the Recital Hall of Jacobs Music Company in Lawrenceville, NJ. It was a benefit for the Damien Dixon Memorial Piano Scholarship. Clarfield, author as well as Professor of Piano at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, worked with several students included in this photo. From left to right are: Vivian Tsai, 14, of Holmdel, NJ; Grace Xiong, 10, of Plainsboro, NJ; Dennis Cheng, 15, of Morganville, NJ; Amanda Cheng, 13, Mendham, NJ; Irene Koc, 14, of Bridgewater, NJ; Professor Ingrid Clarfield of Princeton, NJ; and Amanda Liu, 14.
For followers of Clarfield’s career, the event was an opportunity to applaud the pianist’s tenacious fight back to teaching after a debilitating stroke three years ago. The story of Clarfield’s commitment to her health, her music and her students is the subject of an inspirational new documentary entitled “Take A Bow,” which traces Clarfield’s recovery.
The master class is one of dozens of high caliber music events taking place monthly at Jacobs Music Company, owned by the Rinaldi family of New Jersey. “Supporting and fostering active music-making has been an integral part of our mission for over a century,” said Mark Love, Senior Vice-President of Development for Jacobs Music Company. “It’s who we are as a company and how the Rinaldis think as a family. In the words of our Chairman Al Rinaldi, ‘A life without music is a life without meaning’.”
The Jacobs Music Company has six showrooms, including its flagship location at 1718 Chestnut Street in center city Philadelphia. Other regional piano showrooms are located in Cherry Hill, NJ, Willow Grove and Whitehall, PA, and Wilmington, Delaware. Jacobs Music is the area’s exclusive representative for Steinway & Sons, and Steinway’s Boston piano. Jacobs also represents many other quality piano manufacturers from around the world, including Yamaha, Disklavier and Clavinova. Further information is available on their website www.Jacobsmusic.com. The Lawrenceville store is located at 2540 Brunswick Pike and can be reached by calling (609) 434-0222.
Sticking with Ingrid Clarfield
Piano Instructor Gets Back to What She Loves
Source: Asbury Park Press By: Chris Jordan Date: Friday, December 2, 2011
Click to view a PDF of the article from the Asbury Park Press on Friday, December 2, 2011.
Ingrid Clarfield has a waiting list of more than 25 pianists eager to audition for her, young musicians who long to become one of her 12 private piano students should a spot open up.
David Geng, 17, a high school junior at West Windsor Plainsboro High School South, resides in Princeton, NJ. For six years he was a resident of Princeton Landing. David has been playing piano for 10 years and studies with Ingrid Clarfield, Professor of Piano at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, who lives in Princeton Landing. David has enjoyed performing for several years at the annual Princeton Landing Art Show.
Music Teachers National Association National Conference
Lawrenceville, NJ (December 7, 2011) – On Saturday, December 4, 2011, Professor Ingrid Clarfield, known nationwide for her vibrant style of piano teaching, presented a Master Class to a sold-out crowd in the Recital Hall of Jacobs Music Company in Lawrenceville, NJ. It was a benefit for the Damien Dixon Memorial Piano Scholarship. Clarfield, author as well as Professor of Piano at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, worked with several students included in this photo.
