Preparing stylistically challenging contemporary classical repertoire for performance: Interpreting Kumari

Abstract

Research involving the learning processes of musicians seldom examines specific pieces of music, and limited attention has been devoted to the earliest stages of learning a stylistically challenging or new piece of 20th-/21st-century art music. This article describes the processes by which two pianists (the authors) learned Ross Edwards's Kumari, for solo piano. In doing so, it outlines five "elements" in a model for understanding or replicating that process. A key finding is the concept that some modern repertoire may require a preparation stage that occurs earlier than learning stages documented in the literature, one that establishes an "interpretation platform" for learning music in an unfamiliar style. This article offers a guide to pianists learning or teaching Kumari, other works by Edwards, and other stylistically challenging contemporary piano music. More broadly, it may serve as a model for any individual engaged with less familiar repertoire, and may, therefore, be of benefit to music educators working with students in challenging repertoire for solo instruments, ensembles or choirs.

Identifying challenges and opportunities for student composer and performer peer learning through newly-composed classical piano scores

“…A new type of collaboration arising from this research, and not identified in previous studies, was labelled ‘creative collaboration’ in order to reflect opportunities where performers and composers could work together to come up with a collaborative solution. For performers, Chaffin and Imreh's (2002) stages of learning a piece of music were used, including the extensions from Viney and Blom (2014) in considering newly-composed pieces. Performers’ approaches to solving these challenges were classified in terms of Hultberg's definition of reproductive and explorative approaches (2002), concerning whether the performer had attempted to follow the composer's intentions to the letter, or whether they had found a different solution.…”

“…Polishing 6. Maintenance However, in preparing an unfamiliar contemporary classical piece for performance, Viney and Blom (2014) find that an interpretational platform needs to be established before an understanding of the score elements can be properly achieved in stages 1-3 (scouting it out -the gray stage). This platform involves: 1) getting to know the composer, 2) reading the score, 3) engaging with musical parameters, 4) anchoring and 5) discussing the issues which involve actions such as researching biographical information and previous works, listening to recordings, finding non-musical information on the score that can help with interpretation such as the title, and making sense of the notation in being able to perform what is directed.…”

Deciphering and Embodying Contemporary Piano Scores: A Commentary on Huisman, Gingras, Dhondt, and Leman (2017)

“…To resolve such issues, a performer can find use in building an interpretational platform (Viney & Blom, 2015). Although this includes steps that are similar to what is expected when interpreting Western classical music (e.g.…”

“…Huisman and colleagues attempt to ease this particular challenge by examining the benefit of using a specially designed "embodied" edition over the original score, to look at how this impacts both the amount of rehearsal time and the number of errors made in a subsequent performance. Literature that examines the rehearsal and performance of contemporary works is sparse, despite a few notable exceptions (Barrett, 2014;Clarke et al, 2005;Clarke & Doffman, 2014;Viney & Blom, 2015), and so this article is a welcome contribution that begins to examine how performers decipher and interpret contemporary score information. Demonstrating that an embodied score aids the performer's rehearsal touches on a number of areas within the practice and performance of contemporary music, which this commentary will discuss.…”

The Composer’s Program Note for Newly Written Classical Music: Content and Intentions

“…Although Margulis’s research concerned listeners rather than performers and composers, the positive and negative impact of programs notes has been echoed in research that examines the experiences of performers and their relationship with program notes. For example, in their search to understand a stylistically unusual and conceptually challenging work by Australian composer Ross Edwards, pianists Viney and Blom (2015) noted a lack of non-musical (ontological) or programmatic information in the score of Kumari . For Blom, it was structural information that provided the key to understanding the work and allowed a deeper rehearsal process to be undertaken; for Viney, it was ontological information.…”