Louise Goss, is an internationally recognized teacher, lecturer, author and editor. She is chair of the Board of Trustees of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy and co-founder of The New School for Music Study. Louise Goss also is co-author and editor of the Frances Clark Library for Piano Students, and has conducted workshops, seminars and study courses at colleges and universities nationwide, and has appeared as lecturer, clinician and consultant in the U.S. and abroad. She has pioneered the production of video teaching tapes, which are used extensively in college and university piano pedagogy departments across the country. From 1983-2000 Louise Goss served as adjunct associate professor of piano pedagogy at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Louise Goss is a recipient of the 2005 MTNA Achievement Award.
Louise Goss
The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy
P.O. Box 651
4543 Route 27
Kingston, NJ 08528
Phone: 609.921.0371
Fax 609.921.0479
chair@francesclarkcenter.org
I had known him for many years - the kind of casual collegial acquaintance that is warm and easy, but somehow never gets beyond that. I had heard him play, sat in on his master classes, and marveled at his many talents. I had always wanted to know him better and to find a way to work with him. I remember saying to Frances on more than one occasion, "That Marvin Blickenstaff...we need to find out what he's all about." Yet somehow it never happened, at least not in Frances' lifetime.
Then in 2000, a major change occurred in his life that was to turn my long-held dream into reality. Marvin retired from Goshen College, and moved to just outside Philadelphia. I heard he was to become our neighbor, and called him on the phone. Would he be interested in teaching at the New School for Music Study? He would. And so began one of the most significant relationships of my professional life.
At the same time, the Frances Clark Center was being organized, and Richard Chronister, its new president, grew gravely ill and suddenly died. Even in our shock and grief, we knew a new president had to found, and suddenly it occurred to us that Marvin Blickenstaff, newly in our midst, was the perfect choice. We invited him to join the Board, and to succeed Richard as its president. He agreed to join the Board, but refused the presidency, claiming the boots were too big to fill.
One September afternoon, before he started teaching, I invited Marvin to my home, sat him down in my most comfortable chair, and persuaded him that if anyone could fill those boots, he was the man. An hour later, his resistance worn down, he had agreed, and the rest is history.
Today Marvin not only serves as President of the Board, but directs the "Program for Excellence in Piano Study" ("PEPS"), an accelerated program for highly motivated piano students at the New School. Naturally he is in great demand as a private teacher, producing young pianists who play with exceptional technical prowess and musical brilliance. His classes are models of what a repertoire class can be when developing complete musicianship is its goal. In addition, he is a father figure to our faculty, advising them on technique and repertoire, observing and critiquing their lessons, coaching their piano performance and counseling them on musical, pedagogical and personal issues.
Recently I asked Sam Holland to describe Marvin Blickenstaff's role in American piano pedagogy, and Sam replied, "He's the best loved piano teacher in America." My jumping off place for this tribute is that sentence of Sam's and an examination of why it is true.
Why is he the best loved piano teacher in America? What is it that distinguishes him from other leaders in our field?
There is no question that it begins with the family in which he grew up. His parents were unusually successful in developing three sons, all of whom were serious students, outstanding athletes, devout members of the Church of the Brethren, and filled with health, enthusiasm, and ambition. Despite the fact that Marvin's father and his two brothers all had careers in medicine, when Marvin's musical gifts and passion for the piano became evident, he was encouraged and supported at every step. Thus he grew in a nurturing environment, in which he knew himself to be unconditionally loved and supported as he found his own way.
Through good fortune and parental guidance, he was privileged to work with excellent teachers from an early age. He is passionate about performance, and devotes a great deal of time and energy to his practice. He learns a new program each year and takes every opportunity to play in public. As a result his technical prowess and musical artistry have grown steadily year by year. It is a privilege to hear his exceptional musicianship, across a wide spectrum of composers, forms and styles.
As a piano teacher, he is equally enthused and successful in teaching young children and advanced pianists. Parents fight for places in his studio, and professional teachers and pianists clamor for his coaching. He is masterful in the way he develops technical skill at every level, and the artistry of his students' musical expressivity is legendary. He is meticulous in his lesson planning and skillful in his use of lesson time. He begins with careful analysis of the work being studied, both its form and its harmony. His work-out of a new composition is slow, careful and filled with meaningful repetition of accuracy. His work in later stages is energized by the shape and detail of each phrase, knit together by the sweep of large musical gestures.
As a teacher of master classes, these same pedagogical characteristics apply, but the entire class is vitally involved in the work with each student, and the participation he achieves is a model of the best kind of group teaching.
Among his favorite teaching activities are the workshops which he has been giving for many years across the country and around the world. He is prepared on a large variety of topics, each of which is presented with enormous enthusiasm, delivered in elegant language, and illustrated with musical examples which he plays with great beauty and sensitivity.
Since joining the Board of the Frances Clark Center he has been a member of the executive committee, responsible for planning the biennial National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. While the entire committee works on the entire Conference, Marvin's lead responsibility is outlining the details of the whole program and securing the participants, presenters, keynote speakers and artists. This is a year-round role, but an extremely heavy duty during the odd-numbered years in which the Conference takes place.
This merely hints at the highlights of Marvin's prominence in the various aspects of his career. The thing that really makes him "the best loved piano teacher in America" is a quality beyond all the rest - the open, supportive, warm, caring human being in whose presence the rest of us can grow and flourish.
| TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|---|