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This content is from Cori's February 2023 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Refreshed

"The mountains are calling and I must go." John Muir

Well, maybe not the mountains exactly, but the redwoods! My family and I spent last week in the bay area enjoying a rental house nestled in the California redwoods. Beautiful homes peek out amongst these awe-inspiring trees. Just a short 10-minute walk "through the neighborhood" brought my girls and I to a…

This content is from Cori's December 2022 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Merry Christmas!

Twelve days left until the new year, twelve musical gifts for your enjoyment! 

This is my second newsletter of 2022 - I apologize for being absent for so long! I have packed this newsletter full of musical gifts that I hope you will enjoy as much as I have! My year has been full on the home front. As our girls get older, their activities require more…

This content is from Cori's January 2022 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Getting Back in Shape

New Year, new habits! I have started to incorporate some daily habits on my way back to physical and musical shape! Moving a little more each day: tracking steps with a step counter, a couple days a week of weight/resistance training, getting to the piano daily for at least a ten minute read…(which tends to turn into much more!) 

Bach always seems…

This content is from Cori's February 2021 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Solitary Reflections

The choir that I am a part of is working on another virtual concert project for spring. This involves a great deal of solitary work: practicing, viewing rehearsal videos, and recording oneself singing or playing alone. It is a tremendous task that requires courage, stamina, and dedication. It is not unlike the rest of our mid-COVID lives. We are…

This content is from Cori's January 2021 Newsletter. If you would like to receive her newsletters in your inbox, click to subscribe here.

Happy New Year! 

I hope this finds you busy with new projects and some fun things to look forward to in 2021! Although circumstances may not have changed much since turning the calendar page, I find it is always good to have some element of "newness" or celebration that our family can enjoy. For me personally, I have been revisiting music scores and trying to decide what…

It’s really wonderful how a good teacher can give you just the right tools to enable you to play better. Recently I was fortunate to be able to work once again with Pawel Checinski , who was visiting from Chicago. I played for him a little and then we got to work. He primarily focused on helping me come up with a decisive interpretation, achieve a singing tone, and use arm weight to produce a lovely sound. 

I had been struggling with the memory of the Bach Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911, often getting lost in…

It’s funny how you can hear that something is off as a pianist and not know exactly what is wrong with it or how to fix it until a teacher explains it. When I sit at the keyboard I often don’t ask the same kinds of questions of myself that I would if I were a teacher. It doesn’t come as naturally to me, perhaps because the work on notes and rhythms and memory and the physicality of what’s going on is consuming enough that to think beyond that is not automatic. However, as a teacher, you are physically…

Today I finished re-memorizing Bach’s Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911. I say re-memorizing, because I memorized it 6 years ago for a house concert. And then I moved on to learn and memorize other music and I forgot the piece. Well, I didn’t forget it entirely. My fingers remembered what to do when I pulled out the score, and it came more easily to me physically than it had when I first learned it. But remembering the piece away from the score took a grand amount of effort. And I asked myself, “Why am I putting…

I am reworking a Bach Toccata I learned a few years back in preparation for my concert with Molly Tomlinson for the October 11th Ladies Musical Club concert. "Toccata" literally means "touched" and refers to the virtuosic nature of the music's fingerwork. Originally conceived for early keyboard instruments such as clavichord, harpsichord, and organ, the toccata is not necessarily a "piano" piece. However, I believe that if Bach were to live in our time, he would use the piano to its fullest extent, most…