Authors

Graham Fitch, based in London, maintains an international career not only as a pianist, but also as a teacher, adjudicator, examiner, lecturer, writer and commentator on piano playing and musical subjects.

Penelope Roskell is equally renowned as a performer of international calibre and as an inspirational teacher and professor of piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She is the author of The Complete Pianist: From Healthy Technique to Natural Artistry and is the leading UK specialist in healthy piano playing. She holds a clinic at the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine for pianists with injuries and her guide to preventing and recovering from injury is available here.

Ken Johansen is a pianist, teacher, and writer based in Baltimore, where he teaches at the Peabody Conservatory. His projects include the iPad sight-reading app Read Ahead, a keyboard harmony textbook Harmony at the Piano, the From the Ground Up series and an advanced sight-reading curriculum.

Masayuki Tayama has maintained a highly active schedule as both international recitalist and concerto soloist. Tayama’s Wigmore Hall debut early in his career was a sell-out, and he continues to appear regularly at eminent London venues, including Queen Elizabeth Hall, Cadogan Hall and St. John Smith’s Square. He has taught some of the country’s aspiring pianists as tutor at Chetham’s School of Music, and his teaching incorporates the method taught by Sumiko Mikimoto on tone production, muscle relaxation and training for pianists. In 2020, he was appointed Director of the Piano Teachers’ Course UK, the country’s leading professional development course for piano pedagogy. Tayama is also currently in the midst of a project to record Rachmaninov’s complete works for solo piano.

David Hall is Director of Music at Twyford School in Winchester and Musical Director of Finchcocks Piano Courses. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

Winner of the Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award presented by MTNA, Fred Karpoff has performed as soloist and collaborative pianist on four continents and presents workshops throughout the world. After recovering from a career-threatening injury, his life’s work is realised through guiding teachers and pianists toward more efficient, healthful and expressive playing as the Artistic Producer of Entrada Piano. Fred has served as Professor of Piano at Syracuse University and Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music. He holds the DMA from the Peabody Conservatory and is an international Steinway Artist.

Read Ahead is a comprehensive sight-reading curriculum based on high-quality music, carefully graded and supplemented with a wide variety of exercises to help instil the habits essential for fluent reading.

Beate Toyka, from the Rhineland in Germany, was raised and trained in the heart of the German classical tradition. She is a committed performer and teacher, and active as a concerto soloist, solo recitalist, and accompanist. She appears regularly in the UK, Central and Eastern Europe. As an enthusiast for duet and 8-hands playing, she formed the ‘Derby Piano Quartet’. Her teaching is characterised by a lively empathy for both the music being taught, and for the pupil. She is a valued adjudicator at music festivals. Beate is a principal tutor at the Piano Teachers’ Course, UK.

Lona Kozik, Ph.D., is a composer, pianist, improviser and teacher. Her music has been played and recorded in the United States and Europe. Her online music theory courses are popular and have clarified the subject for many musicians. She runs the School of Music Theory and the Totnes School of Piano from her home in Devon, England.

Forrest Kinney is a pianist, composer, and educator who has written 37 books on music and creativity, including the Pattern Play and Create First books on improvising, the Chord Play and Puzzle Play books on arranging, and the new book Music-Creativity-Joy which explores a creativity-based model of music education.

Ilga Pitkevica-Baldwin graduated from Jazepa Vitola Latvian Music Academy in Riga with honours and a Master’s degree in Solo Piano Performance, Piano Teaching, Accompaniment and Chamber Music. Ilga is a successful piano teacher with the private practice in Cambridge. Since 2014 Ilga has taught as a Principal Tutor of the internationally-acclaimed Piano Teachers’ Course UK. She also lectures in the UK and in Latvia on piano teaching, and on the history and teaching methods of the Russian Piano School.

Dedicated to helping everyone play the music they love and long to play, Lucinda Mackworth-Young has pioneered Practical Psychology for Musicians to help teachers and performers teach, learn and perform as effectively and enjoyably as possible. She has also developed a step-by-step system for learning to play by ear and improvise, so that even classically trained piano players can play spontaneously, anywhere, anytime -and say “Yes!” when asked to play Happy Birthday!

William Westney is recognised internationally as both a master performer and award-winning teacher. After winning the top piano prize in the Geneva International Competition, he performed to acclaim on four continents. His uniquely insightful, refreshing and empowering contributions to piano pedagogy include the innovative performance workshop The Un-Master Class®, the trailblazing book The Perfect Wrong Note (40,000 copies sold worldwide) and his latest book, Eros at the Piano: The Life-Energy of Classical Music.

Charlotte Tomlinson, pianist, teacher, author and performance coach, has become recognised as one of the world’s leading experts in performance anxiety for musicians. She works with musicians around the world through her online courses, talks & master classes and one-to-one consultations, to help them move through unpleasant performance nerves into a free, enjoyable and inspired performing life.

Julian Jacobson has had a distinguished career as pianist, composer, writer, teacher and conductor. He trained at the Royal College of Music in London, where he now teaches (as well as at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) and at Oxford University. He was also the inaugural pianist of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Great Britain and has performed frequently in China, where he is guest professor at Xiamen University. In 2004 and 2013 Julian made history by performing all the sonatas from memory in a single day. He will repeat this ‘marathon’ performance on November 12 in London and November 18 in Uruguay to mark his 75th birthday.

Mark Polishook, currently based in Leicester in the UK, is known internationally as a jazz pianist and a composer. He's a former director of the music composition and theory programs at Central Washington University in the United States.

Sally Cathcart, PhD and Churchill Fellow, is a musician and pianist who is involved in many aspects and levels of music education. Her first love is teaching the piano and she has experience of teaching all ages and levels. She is Co-Founder and Director of The Curious Piano Teachers and is a Principal Tutor on the Piano Teachers’ Course UK.

Adina Mornell, classical pianist and recording artist, received her PhD in Music Psychology and Instrumental Pedagogy in Vienna. As professor at the music university in Munich, she conducts empirical studies in the field of musical performance science. Her teaching and research focus on deliberate practice, attentional focus and the intersection of neuroscience and music psychology. As a solo pianist, she has had several CDs released worldwide; her books and articles (in English and German) address performers and teachers.

New Zealand-born, now Canadian-based composer and pianist Christopher Norton is known the world over for his best-selling educational music, including the Microjazz, Connections and Preludes series. His pieces have been popular choices on examination syllabuses from the mid-1980s to the present day.

Described by Felix Aprahamian as "the finest all-round musician I have ever known", Grimwood is more than just a pianist. His interest in historic keyboards has lead him to perform on pianos of all ages, harpsichords, virginals and organs. As a musical polymath he has written for various publications and can occasionally be found at his desk composing or performing on the viola.