In Praise of the Masterclass

  By coincidence my brother, John, and I attended "masterclasses" in the same week.  His was in London mine, of course in Oracle.  John is a life long pianist. 

  He was raving about how great it was as a 79 year old who still takes regular lessons.  The sum total of my musical experience was taking guitar for 2 years at the age of 12.  So his experience was grounded differently than mine.  Duh!
  The fact is I had never observed a masterclass until the Oracle Piano Society/OrCA hit town.  At least not musically speaking.  Looked at as a teaching/learning experience without a music focus I've been in lots of them because I've had some great teachers in multip;le fields.  Some of the same qualities apply across the board.  To gardening, cabinet making, public speaking, organization building, child raising, every sport, writing, art appreciating, personal training, band.  On and on. Performance mastery, attention, care, inspiration, challenge, precision are all part of the mix in master- class practice.  This helps explain why Kaz and I appreciated the masters, students, and the impresario himself (at left in the above image) so much.