2024
Ulrike Wohlwender, Professor of Piano Pedagogy at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart and Silvia Molan are presenting a paper: Sirius 6.0 – a piano that grows your hands at the VII International Meeting on Piano Pedagogy in Brazil, 1-4 September 2024. https://www.even3.com.br/viieinpp/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE99wNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHYy-fOgZkUHh42EticmuTet6DbepoHxxy2I4SVErFmcfyLYl229ljo4T9A_aem_g8iBFiglbPQxkJ6-rK6QRg
Dr Barbara Lister-Sink, Professor of Piano at Salem College, North Carolina, presented at two conferences in July 2024: PAMA (Performance Arts Medicine Association) in London and ISME (International Society for Music Education) in Helsinki.
The Fourth International Stretto Piano Festival ran from 25 May to 4 June, with live performances in New York City’s Symphony Space, San Diego, Dallas, Victoria BC, Stuttgart, Bayreuth, Latvia, Melbourne and Auckland. Additional online concerts were recorded in London, Singapore and North Carolina. https://www.strettopianoconcerts.org/2024
The University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart held a series of concerts during 2024 using their new 6.0 keyboard installed in their Steinway D.
Stretto Piano Concerts ran an online event for works by Rachmaninoff and his contemporaries in February. Six pianists participated. https://www.strettopianoconcerts.org/rachmaninoff
At the International EPTA concert in Lucerne, Prof Ulrike Wohlwender and Silvia gave a presentation on ‘Sirius 6.0 – Piano keys that grow your hands’. In addition. Steingraeber & Sohne took their new Salon grand with 6.0 keyboard, and Thomas Kaduk showed his digital concert grand ‘Tendens’ for the first time, as well as a 7/8 acoustic keyboard in a Yamaha upright. https://www.epta.ch/de/46th-int-epta-conference
In March, a special training day for teachers and pianists was held at the Nuremberg University of Music about healthy piano playing and injury prevention. The university’s Sirius 6.0 piano was available for participants to try. https://musikschulen-bayern.de/kalender/event-detail/show/2512
2023
Leading academics in the USA and Germany collaborated in two podcasts organised by Piano Tech Radio Hour in September and October 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROfriU6vo18 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYY7-UVfF0k&list=PLHBn-VaaOCGcfrUsklI1GztxTaaGj5sPh&index=16
The Third International Stretto Piano Festival ran from 15 to 23 July with live performances in New York City’s Engelman Recital Hall and online concerts from around the world. https://www.strettopianoconcerts.org/2023
Dr Carol Leone, Professor and head of keyboard studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, gave a presentation to piano faculty staff at the University of Colorado Boulder in September.
Rhonda Boyle gave a presentation at a seminar for Melbourne teachers and pianists at the Australian National Academy of Music on 17 July 2023. Details attached: https://paskpiano.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ANAM-seminar-July-2023.pdf
Camila De Oliveira gave a lecture-recital: ‘Assessing the Playability of Virtuoso Piano Repertoire Using an Ergonomically Scaled Piano Keyboard (ESPK) for the Small-Handed Pianist’ at the University of Auckland in June 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFQ_8Jqcpg0&list=PLHBn-VaaOCGcLBjxHVt-UNzsqz-xaOl0s&index=24&t=5s
Erica Booker, Rhonda Boyle and Ju-Yang Chi gave a presentation to the Frances Clark Center’s Webinar series: ‘Hand size, keyboard size and ergonomics: One size does not fit all’ in March 2023. This can be accessed free of charge to subscribers to Piano magazine:
https://pianoinspires.com/classes/research/
Dr Tina Chong, Assistant Professor of Piano and Andrew Aziz, Associate Professor of Music at San Diego State University, gave a presentation to the ‘Women at the Piano’ conference at UCI in March 2023. https://music.arts.uci.edu/international-conference-women-piano-1848-1970
2022
In April and again in November, Professor Ulrike Wohlwender at the University of Music and Performing Arts (HDMK) in Stuttgart, Germany hosted seminars and concerts involving pianists playing on the ‘Sirius’ piano – the university’s Yamaha grand piano with 6.0 inch (15.2 cm) octave keyboard. Experts in musician medicine, piano manufacturing, artistic, physiological, historical and educational aspects of narrower keys were involved in the discussions. Sirius 6.0 was available for those attending to try out. Here is one of several videos released by HDMK in 2023 —>
The second International Stretto Piano Festival ran from 18 to 26 June 2022. Pianists from across five continents were featured in 29 concerts. Visit the festival ticket page: https://info.musae.me/stretto-2022.
Ohio University held a piano pedagogy seminar in June 2022 where DS5.5 and DS6.0 keyboards were available for attendees to try out.
Professor Jess Johnson from University of Wisconsin Madison gave a keynote address at the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association in June 2022. Jess plays DS keyboards regularly and spoke about strategies for small-handed pianists.
The Arizona State Music Teachers Association held their state conference: ‘The Hybrid Studio’ in Tucson Arizona from 2 to 4 June. A Hailun HU1P upright piano with DS6.0 keyboard was available at the Hailun booth for attendees to to try.
2021
The first International Stretto Piano Festival ran from 15 to 23 May 2021. All pianists performed on keys that are narrower than today’s conventional keyboard size with its 6.5 inch octave. The festival was hosted online by Musae. You can still purchase tickets to watch our many fine pianists from America, Europe and Australia. Visit the festival ticket page: https://info.musae.me/stretto-2021
2019
In November, Prof Carol Leone (Southern Methodist University, Dallas) was guest artist at a piano residency held at the University of Memphis featuring a DS6.0 keyboard currently on loan from the DS Standard Foundation.
Dutch pianist, Karolinka de Bree, owner of a 5.5 inch octave keyboard installed in her grand piano, gave a presentation at the International EPTA conference in Vienna on 25 October 2019.
Kathryn Mientka Farruggia performed over 40 minutes of solo Beethoven works, including most of the Emperor Concerto, at a concert held in conjunction with the Sedona Film Festival in Arizona. Film clips from five different Beethoven movies were shown during the performance. Her Yamaha C7 with DS5.5 keyboard was moved to the concert hall for her performance. https://www.vvsinfonietta.org/
At the NCKP conference held in Chicago on 24-27 July 2019, Professors Carol Leone and Jessica Johnson ran an interactive wellness cafe featuring DS® keyboards provided by the DS Standard Foundation: dsstandardfoundation.org. A DS6.0® keyboard installed in a Hailun HU1P upright piano and a DS5.5® keyboard installed in a Yamaha C7 grand piano were available for delegates to try.
Renowned Australian pianist, Bernadette Harvey, ran a workshop on 29 June 2019 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Details below…
Dr Carol Leone, Professor of Piano at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, gave two recitals on a DS5.5® keyboard in Grand Junction, Colorado on May 17 and 18.
2018
Dr Jessica Johnson, professor of piano at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, organised a pedagogical workshop at the East Carolina University on 1 November, 2018. Using videos of performances on a Steinbuhler DS5.5® keyboard , she demonstrated effective strategies for teaching students with small hands.
A piano teachers’ festival was held on October 13-14 2018 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
One of the presentations were given by Erica Booker, Ju-Yang Chi and Bronwen Ackermann about alternatively sized keyboards and the research underway at the Sydney University Medical School A student performed on a piano with 6 inch octave keyboard. He was connected to motion sensors to compare muscular activity on both this keyboard and the conventional 6.5 inch octave keyboard. Results were displayed on a large screen in real time.
Ju-Yang Chi presented at the PAMA conference in Orange, CA (30 June-3 July, 2018) on his doctoral research program: ‘Hand span and muscle activity levels on pianos with different sized keyboards’. Ju-Yang’s supervisor is Dr Bronwen Ackermann (University of Sydney, editor of MPPA journal). The pianist trials are making use of the pianos in Erica Booker’s Sydney studio.
Boston pianist, Anna Arazi, ran a whole-day event on 15 January 2018 for local teachers and students at the Church of Our Savior in Brookline. This event featured a Cunningham grand piano with DSS5.5® keyboard. The program included a presentation and discussion, try-out sessions and a short recital by Anna.
Concert pianist Kathryn Mientka, who performs on a DS5.5® in a Yamaha grand piano, gave four recitals this early in 2018 in Sedona, Arizona, and in Paonia, Grand Junction and Montrose, Colorado.
She performed works by Liszt and Rachmaninoff – normally reserved for big-handed pianists.
See this story in The Daily Sentinel:
https://www.gjsentinel.com/entertainment/going-smaller-pianist-uses-new-keyboard-to-conquer-big-handed/article_6bc91776-f18a-11e7-b8b7-10604b9f6eda.html
2017
Professor Carol Leone (Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas) gave a presentation and performance at the Juilliard School in New York in November 2017. There was much interest from both teachers and students.
The keyboard she used was DS6.0® installed in a Yamaha CFX concert grand piano.
A piano recital followed by a lively panel discussion was held at NCKP (National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy) on 26 July 2017. Four top pianists/professors performed on a DS6.0® keyboard in a Yamaha CFIIIS: Barbara Lister-Sink, Jessica Johnson, Jovanni-Rey de Pedro and Artina McCain.
<——See the video of these performances.
Canadian pianist, Monique Fournier presented a recital and seminar at the Lipnicki piano store in Calgary on 3 November 2017. She performed on her own brand new DS5.5® keyboard in her grand piano.
https://www.facebook.com/events/886000394910612/
For media stories about this event, go to Media stories
Concert pianist, Anastasia Markina recently performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the University of North Texas Orchestra using the university’s DS6.0® keyboard.
Here are some excerpts from her performance on the PASK playlist:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4TBEbBrTJc
Early in 2017, SMU student Tiffany Lu won the university’s undergraduate concert competition, performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor on a DS6.0® keyboard. Here is her performance of the third movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=73&v=EcBcQmhK7kQ
Professor Carol Leone, from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, gave a presentation and performance on a DS6.0® keyboard in a Yamaha CFX grand at the Texas State International Piano Festival. This festival was held at the University in San Marco, June 3-11, 2017. Many professors and students loved playing this keyboard and were excited about the future and how these keyboards could benefit so many, many pianists! (http://tsipf.com/)
2016
Sydney teacher Erica Booker presented: The benefits of ergonomically scaled piano keyboards for smaller handed pianists: Levelling the playing field at the EPTA (European Piano Teachers Association) conference in September 2016, held in Reykjavik, Iceland. http://asp.artegis.com/EPTA2016. A new Kawai GM12 150 cm grand piano, owned by Icelandic pianist Berglind Jonsdottir, with octave size a little over 6 inches (approx 15/16 of the conventional size) was available for delegates to try. Here is a video of Berglind trying it out for the first time. |
2015
Dr Carol Leone (SMU, Dallas) and Rhonda Boyle were among the presenters on the theme of ‘Wellness’ at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) in Chicago: 29 July-1 August 2015. For details, refer to: http://www.keyboardpedagogy.org/workshops/saturdayworkshops.
At the 12th Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference, held in Melbourne in July 2015, Rhonda Boyle presented the paper: Pianist Hand Spans: Gender and Ethnic Differences and Implications for Piano Playing, by Boyle, Boyle & Booker. http://www.appca.com.au/proceedings/
At the same conference, six well-known Melbourne pianists performed on a Kawai GM12 150 cm grand piano with octave size a little over 6 inches (approx 15/16 of the conventional size). These pianists all chose repertoire they found challenging or uncomfortable on the conventional keyboard, and they had very little preparation time on the different keyboard size. In the panel discussion afterwards, they spoke very positively about the benefits of this keyboard. The hand spans of these six pianists covered a wide range – from a woman with very small hands to three men with ‘average’ size spans for males. As one of the participants, a successful teacher of elite young people, Glenn Riddle, said afterwards: ‘These pianos should be everywhere!’
<—-Left to Right: Erica Booker & Rhonda Boyle (organisers), Tim Young, Julia Hastings, John Blanch (General Manager, Kawai Australia), Elyane Laussade, Glenn Riddle, Rohan Murray, Kenji Fujimura
2005 - A world first!
Canadian pianist Linda Gould has released this video of excerpts from her performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on a DS5.5® keyboard installed in a Yamaha G2, recorded back in 2005. We think that this is probably the first public video of anyone performing on this size keyboard!
