Press Release
Tomorrow's stars to grace Carnegie Hall in April
By Charles Gershman
Recent performers at Carnegie Hall include András Schiff, Joan Osborne, and the Vienna Philharmonic. At 1:30 on Sunday, April 6, a younger, but no less promising, array of musicians will grace the stage as pianist and Juilliard instructor Julie Jordan, DMA, brings her students into the hall to play.
Highlights include Beethoven's Sonata in F Minor (Op. 2, No. 1), Clementi's Sonatina in G major (Op. 36, No. 5), Mozart's Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Schubert's Impromptu in A flat major (Op. 90, No. 4), and Liszt's Un Sospiro. Performers will include students ranging in age from six to eighteen. Dr. Jordan will open the recital with the three movements from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major (Op. 15). She will also perform Chopin's Scherzo in B minor (Op. 20) as the program's finale.
Among the youngest of the pianists is Akari Amano, of Doylestown, Penn. Akari has studied with Dr. Jordan since 2005, and was one of a number of Dr. Jordan's students to compete in the Buono & Bradshaw International Piano Competition last May.
Dr. Jordan has attracted nothing shy of a following of student pianists. On the faculty at Juilliard's Evening Division since 1985, Dr. Jordan is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. She has held teaching fellowships at UCLA and Juilliard, where she was awarded the Atwater-Kent and Knafel prizes. She has performed at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, UCLA's Royce Hall, UC-Berkeley's Hertz Hall, the Wright-designed Marin Civic Center, and at venues in Canada, Capri, Japan, and Greece, among many other places. She earned her doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music and currently teaches at Juilliard's Evening Division and, in the summer, at the Musica e Arte Festival in Tolentino, Italy.
Dr. Jordan maintains a large private two-piano studio on West 89th Street in New York City, and also teaches the popular Piano Concerto Class at Juilliard, which she created to prepare pianists for performance in concerts and competitions.
Dr. Jordan herself studied with teachers taught by legendary pianists, including Artur Schnabel, Edwin Fischer and David Saperton. She is the author of the three-volume series Speed-Reading at the Keyboard, published by Ekay in 1987. Her performances have been broadcast on New York's WNYC and WQXR, and on San Francisco's KKHI.
Dr. Jordan's emphasis as a teacher is on the individual. Although she is one of eight children, she says she "felt the luxury of an only child" as the only musician in her family. "My studio reflects a dynamic fabric woven from diverse backgrounds." Her students travel from as near as Brooklyn and as far as Japan, Taipei, and Norway to study with her.
As Dr. Jordan believes very much in the notion of musical community, her students tend to stick with her-and each other. She has guided individuals, duos, and groups, and counts among her students winners of numerous prizes and honors.
"All enrich my education," Dr. Jordan says, "as I truly learn from my teaching experience. I bring that daily adventure back into my playing and it is how this particular concert lineup was born." In her own words, Dr. Jordan aims to give back "all of the joy that comes with teaching," and to inspire in her students a kind of love of music and musicianship that incorporates a fundamental appreciation for those with whom the musician exists interdependently. "Usually, we learn from others and need the stimulation of our peers with friendly competition or the simple awareness of what we do. That is the benefit of my master classes and performances. Students learn to relax and participate in their own lessons." Ultimately, Dr. Jordan's goal is to help students become their own best teachers.
"We all speak the same universal language at the keyboard," she says. "The essence of performance gives us the ears that make our music meaningful and nurturing."
Dr. Jordan's students often lead very full lives. Yuko Amano, for instance, drives her daughter Akari three hours from Pennsylvania to New York for regular lessons. "The typical Manhattan student is booked with activities beyond their studies," Dr. Jordan says. To accommodate their busy New York schedules, she often begins teaching at seven in the morning, and sometimes ends her days past ten at night. "Their interpretations are a mosaic resulting from the need we all have to transcend these tall buildings and float with nature. Music is contagious and healing." Dr. Jordan's adult students, who are quite seasoned as performers, include the duo of pianist-composer Noriko Sugiyama and Jonathan Newell, who will be performing his own composition with Dr. Jordan's adults in early May, 2008, with a Manhattan chamber orchestra; John Pennacchi, who has studied with Dr. Jordan not only at Juilliard but also in Italy; with Tamila Kvaratskhelia, a graduate from Georgia's Tbilisi State Conservatoire; and NYU alumna Allison White, a student and musician at Cal State.
Tickets for the program on April 6 can be purchased at the Carnegie Hall Box Office beginning March 31, or directly from Dr. Jordan, at julie_a_jordan@msn.com.