100 tips for working with ballet pianists #16: Know your pianist’s limits
Find out what your pianist does best, and work with it, because there may be things they simply can’t do well – like improvisation, jazz, reading complex music at sight,…
100 tips for working with pianists #15: Don’t make faces!
Trying to control a class and music that is suddenly too fast or too slow can make you anxious. An anxious facial expression can often be misread, and understood as…
100 tips for working with pianists #14: Let pianists go if you don’t need them
If you won’t need your pianist for more than five minutes, let them know. Sitting in one position for a long time is uncomfortable, and they may be glad of…
100 tips for working with pianists #13: Give pianists time to practise
It is good manners and good professional practice to give a musician the option of having time to prepare a piece of music if they need or want it. If…
HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2005
HAPPY CHRISTMAS! There’s a wonderful restaurant in Prague called Restaurace Století where I’ve spent many a happy time with friends and colleagues from the ballet masterclasses. Each dish on Století’s…
Tania Fairbairn
This is December 24th in my Dance Inpirations advent calendar As it comes to the end of this advent calendar, I’m left with a very difficult decision: I still have…