9:30-10:00 Pre-Meeting Discussion
Presenter: Dr. Christina Tio
Title: “Cultivating Musicality”
This brief program will share strategies that have been found effective and successful in cultivating musicality in students at all playing levels. The half hour will be packed with actionable ideas and some samples of lesson videos.
BIOGRAPHY
Christina Tio earned her piano performing and teaching diplomas, BA (Hons) and MMus in Piano Performance in the United Kingdom at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Reading University respectively, as a student of Frank Wibaut of Royal Academy of Music in London. Her interest in musicology, and the award of a scholarship led her into musicological research with Nicholas Cook, under whose guidance, she completed her PhD in Musicology at the Univeristy of Southampton, UK.
First began teaching the piano at age 14, Christina maintained a studio all through her school and college. Before moving to Chicago, she also taught for five years at various colleges and universities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, including Universiti Malaya (UM), University College Sedaya International (UCSI) and National Academy of Arts (ASWARA).
Dr. Tio has been a regular session presenter. Recent conference presentations include the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA) Leadership Retreat in May 2019, Illinois State Music Teacher Association (ISMTA) Conference in November 2019 and a Poster at Music Teacher National Association (MTNA) Virtual Conference 2022. She also presents regularly at local Music Teacher Association monthly meetings, at Naperville Music Teacher Association (NMTA) in October 2019 and March 2022, and North Shore Music Teacher Association (NSMTA) in September 2020. Dr. Tio has also served as a Piano Masterclass clinician at the biennial Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA) Teachers Conference in Minneapolis in 2018. She frequently adjudicates at festivals and competitions, and enjoys teaching and mentoring students, parents and fellow teachers at workshops and summer institutes around the US, as well as in Singapore.
Passionate about the Suzuki philosophy, Christina considers Parent Education and Developing Musicality her forte. She enjoys a thriving piano studio characterized by excellence and joy, where music making is appreciated as a lifelong endeavor. Her students frequently receive awards at local, regional, national and international competitions. They also perform extensively in the community at festivals and nursing homes to warm critical acclaim. Prize winnings have also led her students to appearances at SAA Conferences in Minneapolis (2014 to date), Alice Millar Chapel at Northwestern University, IL (2017), Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall (2019, 2021), Merkin Hall in Kaufman Center in New York (2019), Beethoven Haus in Bonn, Germany (2021), as well as MTNA Virtual National Conference (2022). Christina is currently a Suzuki Piano faculty at the Music Institute of Chicago. Aside from in-person lessons and group classes, Christina also teaches online with students in California, Kansas City and Colorado, in the UK and in Singapore. Also a homeschool mom since 2013, she lives in Skokie, IL with her husband and son.
10:00-11:00 Business Meeting
Meeting will be led by NSMTA President, George Radosavljevic followed by refreshments.
11:00-12:00 Program
Presenter: Dr. Matthew Hagle
Program: Small Worlds - Exploring Asian Influences on the Piano Repertoire
This presentation will trace how some of the musical instruments and idioms of Asia affected some of the great piano composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and I’ll also be offering performances of pieces by these Western, Asian-influenced composers, as well as pieces by Asian composers. The history of this interaction is fascinating and complicated; by examining it, we can not only play and teach these pieces better and find interesting new repertoire, but also place the achievements of the great European composers in a new perspective. I hope you will join me!
BIOGRAPHY
Pianist Matthew Hagle is a musician of great versatility and depth, whose performances are a rare mixture of musical understanding, imaginative programming, pianistic command and beauty of sound. In solo performance he often tries to shed new light on the piano repertoire, using thoughtful programming and committed performance to present lesser-known works and to illuminate the traditional canon. In a more conventional vein, he has also performed all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas in a series of live radio recitals, and he is currently in the process of exploring the complete later pieces of Brahms. Mr. Hagle is also highly valued as a collaborator by many other artists. With violinist Rachel Barton Pine, he has released three acclaimed CDs on the Cedille label, and performed many recitals in North and South America. His piano duo performances with Mio Isoda-Hagle have been highlights of the annual Chicago Duo Piano Festival. Other chamber music partners have been the Parker Quartet, the Avalon Quartet, Quintet Attacca, and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Matthew Hagle has been heard in concert halls throughout the United States, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Symphony Space in New York, and in concert at the United States Supreme Court. Outside of the U.S., he has performed at venues in England, Canada, Brazil, Australia and Japan. A resident of the Chicago area, Hagle performs frequently at local spaces including the Ravinia Festival, Symphony Center, and the Chicago Cultural Center. Mr. Hagle can often be heard on radio station WFMT in Chicago, and has also been heard on NPR’s Performance Today and Minnesota Public Radio’s St. Paul Sunday Morning programs. Among others, the New York Times has described him as “a sensitive pianist”, Clavier Magazine praised the “rare clarity and sweetness”of his playing, and the Springfield (MA.) Republican remarked that he “played with unaffected brilliance and profound understanding.” Mr. Hagle’s performance of Elliott Carter’s Piano Sonata in the Sydney International Piano Competition received special notice and favorable commentary in Australian national radio’s coverage of the competition.
Mr. Hagle is a dedicated teacher of piano, music theory, and composition, whose students have won high honors in local and national competitions and gone on to study music at some of the country’s finest music schools. He is currently on the faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago, where he is director of the Musicianship program in addition to his teaching duties. In addition, he has taught at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, and at Elmhurst College. His own studies were with Robert Weirich and Donald Currier at the Peabody Conservatory, with Claude Frank at the Yale School of Music (where he received the DMA), and with Maria Curcio Diamand in London as a Fulbright Scholar. A comfortable speaker on diverse musical subjects, Mr. Hagle likes to use this ability to draw connections between very new and older music, or between music and other art forms. In his spare time he likes to read on a variety of subjects, to try to learn other languages, and to spend time with his two children.