Julia's Piano Studio - Cambridge Music Teacher

Winner of the 1970 International Chopin Piano Competition, Garrick Ohlsson remains the only American pianist to win first prize at the competition. Widely regarded as one of the great interpreters of Frédéric Chopin, he is also celebrated for his performances of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the Romantic repertoire. During the 2009–2010 season, he appeared with major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

In this filmed masterclass and discussion from 2010, Ohlsson describes the piano as an instrument of “illusion,” since every sound begins fading the moment a key is struck. He explains how Chopin used harmony, texture, touch, and pedaling to create the illusion of a singing line that continues in the listener’s ear.

Ohlsson calls Chopin the “Rosetta Stone” of modern piano playing, showing how he moved away from rigid keyboard techniques and wrote music that fits naturally in the hand. He also reflects on how Chopin transformed smaller forms such as the Études, Mazurkas, and Nocturnes, connecting them through color, expression, and emotional flow rather than purely grand structure.

Florence Price became the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra, yet much of her music remained unheard for decades after her death. Her Concerto in One Movement reflects the same voice that made her music so distinctive — lyrical, deeply human, and filled with both dignity and warmth.

Rather than following the traditional three-movement concerto form, Price allows the music to unfold as one continuous story. The piano sings through rich orchestral colors, moving between moments of tenderness, brilliance, and quiet reflection. Beneath its Romantic language are traces of spirituals, hymns, and the musical traditions that shaped her life and identity.

She was first introduced by Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933 - premiering her Symphony No. 1 at the Chicago’s World Fair.

Performed by the Texas Medical Center Orchestra under the direction of Libi Lebel, with Lulu Liu as soloist in 2020.

Maurizio Pollini recalls that the foundation of Arthur Rubinstein’s technique lay in the natural use of arm weight rather than muscular force.

By allowing the arm to transfer weight freely into supported fingertips, Rubinstein achieved a resonant, unforced tone while maintaining physical ease at the keyboard — a principle that also allows pianists to play for long periods without unnecessary fatigue.

Masterclass with pianist László Gyimesi on the importance of the fingertips in piano technique. Through scales, arpeggios, chords, and trills, Gyimesi demonstrates how stable yet flexible fingertips create clarity, control, and freedom of movement.

The lesson explores supporting fingers for hand stability, the transfer of arm weight through the fingertips, and rotational movements for strengthening the thumb and fifth finger. Students are also encouraged to develop fingertip sensitivity through dynamic control and refined touch.

Born in Szentes, Hungary, Gyimesi studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and later worked with renowned pianists including Géza Anda, György Sebők, and Stefan Askenase. He performed internationally and taught piano for over three decades in Stuttgart and Basel.

Credit to

Alexander Goldenweiser was more than a celebrated pianist and pedagogue — he was part of the inner artistic world of Leo Tolstoy.

Goldenweiser frequently visited Yasnaya Polyana, playing for Tolstoy in the writer’s final years. Tolstoy deeply admired the sincerity and spiritual depth of his playing, and many later recalled how music filled the evenings of the Tolstoy household.

In this rare documentary footage, the great Russian piano tradition appears only one generation removed from Tolstoy himself: through teaching, sound, memory, and art that sought to “elevate and ennoble the human soul.”

“The purpose of art is to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible.”
— Leo Tolstoy

Robert Levin Masterclass at Juilliard in 2017 with Changyong Shin, Beethoven Sonata Op.101

/In this 2017 masterclass at Juilliard School, Robert Levin reflects on one of the most elusive challenges in music-making: how a sonata truly begins. Rather than treating the opening as a fixed declaration, Levin imagines it as something already in motion — sound emerging out of silence, as though the listener has quietly entered a room where the music has been breathing all along.

It is a reminder that the first note is never simply attacked or announced; it must arise organically, carrying with it the atmosphere of an unseen world already alive before we hear it. Levin’s insight transforms the opening from a technical event into a philosophical one: the art of making music feel discovered rather than started.

Nikolai Lugansky with Marko Letonja conducting Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, 2019 — Prokofiev’s Second Concerto unfolds with relentless momentum and terrifying brilliance. Lugansky’s playing moves between brutal power and spectral lyricism, while the orchestra drives the work’s vast architecture with dark intensity. The monumental first-movement cadenza feels less like virtuosity for its own sake than a psychological unraveling: fierce, uncompromising, and hypnotic from beginning to end.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16
Sergei Prokofiev

Legendary pianist Alicia de Larrocha works with IKIF participant Jasmin Arakawa on Iberia Book I in this rare 2004 masterclass. Only a portion of the session was captured, focusing mainly on the first two pieces — El Puerto and the opening of Fête-dieu à Séville.

For decades, de Larrocha was considered the supreme interpreter of Isaac Albéniz, bringing unmatched clarity, colour, and rhythmic vitality to the music of Spain. Here, she reveals how Iberia lives beyond the notes: guitar sonorities, dance rhythms, bells in the distance, and the atmosphere of Andalusia itself.

Performance & Masterclass
El Puerto & opening of Fête-dieu à Séville
July 24, 2004
International Keyboard Institute & Festival
Mannes College of Music, New York, USA

Jasmin Arakawa

[Vincenzo Scaramuzza school: technique must be developed directly on the musical pieces.]

(Shhh, she’s not saying you shouldn’t do scales, but more weight on working directly on the piece)

/Martha Argerich (born 1941) is an Argentine classical pianist widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time (yes, she’s the GOAT). A child prodigy who debuted at age eight, she gained international superstardom after winning the prestigious International Chopin Piano Competition in 1965 at age 24.

“So C minor for Beethoven is more than just a key. So for Rachmaninoff, I think for me, certainly there are two keys which are unbelievably important.“ Listen to find out Lugansky’s thoughts on Beethoven and Rachmaninoff’s symbolic keys.

Nikolai Luganksy is the closest living pianist to Rachmaninoff. He performs the works as if drawing them from an inexhaustible pouch.

/A 1994 Tchaikovsky Competition winner, he is famed for balancing power with delicate nuance, earning multiple prestigious awards like the Diapason d’Or and ECHO Klassik.

Not the wrist bridge, but the ‘knuckle bridge’.
- Marina Lomazov & Czerny