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Alan Fraser - Beginnings

Born in Montreal in 1955 Alan Fraser studied piano but also delved into composition, cello, classical singing and had several stints as a pop musician. Alan’s main pianistic influence was the pioneering research of Phil Cohen who studied alongside Ronald Turini, Andre Laplante and Janina Fialkowska with Yvonne Hubert, who had been Cortot‘s assistant in Paris. Alan spent several years with Cohen after an apprenticeship with two former Cohen students, Alan Belkin and Lauretta Milkman.

Early Orientation Towards the Physical in Piano Technique

Cohen’s profound understanding of the physical, psychological and musical elements of piano technique led alanfraser02Fraser to a new goal: to develop a new approach to piano technique based on the Feldenkrais Method. In 1988 he embarked on a 4-year professional training in the Method, which applies advances in the field of bio-mechanics to neuromotor function – in short, it improves how we move by improving the very learning processes involved in movement.

Move to Yugoslavia

Fraser’s next move was to Yugoslavia in 1990 to collaborate with the acclaimed virtuoso Kemal Gekich. The goal: to synthesize elements of the three main 19th century schools of piano playing (the Russian French and Germanic) with the more recently developed principles of human movement found in Feldenkrais Method, to arrive at a new school of piano playing.

Guest Piano Professorship in Wuhan, China

A decade after he set out for Yugoslavia, Alan Fraser’s unusual odyssey continued in mainland China, where in the millennium year 1999-2000 he worked with the most promising pianistic talents at Wuhan Conservatory of Music. By now his combination of Feldenkrais’s principles of movement with the brilliant practical work of Gekich and Gekic’s teacher Jokuthon Mihailovich was crystallizing into a whole new vision of piano technique.

Publication of The Craft of Piano Playing

Back in Yugoslavia, Alan Fraser finally distilled the fruit of this rich cross-cultural pianistic and pedagogical experience into book form. The Craft of Piano Playing, presenting both a general theory and its practical application in over 60 exercises, was published by Scarecrow Press in 2003. Fraser subsequently released a DVD version of Craft in 2006, a Study Guide in 2009 and published his second major volume, Honing the Pianistic Self-Image in 2010.


You can find out more about Alan’s various activities at one of his several websites:
www.alanfraser.net
www.craftofpiano.com
www.pianotechnique.net
www.maplegroveproductions.com

Pricing
Tickets: $20 member, $22 advance, $24 door, $5 youth


Where to buy Tickets: Tickets available by calling or visiting the box office (902) 532-7704.

209 St George Street
Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia

 [email protected]
 902-532-7704

       

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