Columbus State U Holds Remote Master Class in Piano
The Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University held its first ever remote piano master class on October 10.
Undergraduate and graduate music students performed on the school's Yamaha Disklavier CFX concert grand piano located on the school's campus in Columbus, GA.
Meanwhile, Boris Slutsky, chair of the Piano Department at Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Conservatory, evaluated the students' performances from Yamaha Artist Services in New York City.
Slutsky
sat at a similarly equipped Disklavier and could watch and listen as
the instrument replicated the students' "actual key strokes and subtle
gradations of pedal movement" in real-time, according to a news
release. He then evaluated each student's performance and demonstrated
some of his corrections on the Disklavier in New York.
"Our
students are now able to connect — via performances, lectures and
masterclasses — with schools, colleagues and world-renowned pianists
located anywhere in the world," said Alexander Kobrin, the L. Rexford
Whiddon distinguished chair in piano and artist in residence at CSU, in
a prepared statement.
The Yamaha Disklavier CFX is an acoustic
grand piano featuring an optical sensor system that captures nuanced
movements of the keys, hammers and pedals and transmits them to a
remote Disklavier. The piano also features DSP servo technology that
use the optical sensor data during playback to monitor and verify
precision of movement in real-time to reproduce the remote performance,
according to information on Yamaha's site.
Columbus State
University supporter, Gail Greenblatt, gifted the piano to the Schwob
School of Music in 2014. Since then the university has used the piano
for numerous concerts. The event in October was the first of four
planned master classes. Three subsequent remote lessons will be
conducted by teaching artists on December 1, 2016; January 23, 2017;
and March 27, 2016.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].