Joanna MacGregor recently became Head of Piano Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London - and a more relaxed and friendly pianist it would be hard to find. She is known as an innovative musician who loves to express musical connections across diverse and original programming. Indeed in 2010, at the Royal Opera House in London, she successfully brought together visual artists, contemporary dance, film and theatre installations, as well as music collaborations.
Joanna MacGregor was paying a return visit to the impressive City of Edinburgh Music School which is part of the newly built Broughton High School complex in Comely Bank’s East Fettes Avenue. In the early part of the afternoon she had given a masterclass to the brightest piano players of the future, something they will never forget.
My arrival coincided with the end of the school day and I was walking against the tide as I approached the School’s main door - and yet there was a girl ready to give me a programme for the Recital. Before long Tudor Morris, the Music School’s Director, was asking a young man to show me round the rehearsal rooms whilst the recital hall was being readied. He told me he was a violin player; he laughed when I told him when I was his age I was playing the viola - they all do.
Joanna MacGregor’s recital was in front of pupils of a wide age range, parents, friends and distinguished visitors. By Tudor Morris’s welcome it was clear that Joanna MacGregor was a very welcome friend. Her succinct, interesting and clear introductions to the four works she played was a lesson in itself. Not surprising she is such a renowned teacher. Her choice of Bach followed by Chopin was starting with traditional classical, and by the time we were at the Barber we were well into the twentieth century.
The recital closed with four tangos by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) arranged for piano by Joanna MacGregor. At the age of 16 Piazzolla had returned to Buenos Aires from New York and formed his own orchestra. He was a master of the Argentine accordion and single handedly re-invented the tango - not without a great deal of controversy.
Watching from the front row was Craig Terry, Managing Director of Steinway and Sons, purring that he was in one of Scotland’s two Steinway Schools of Excellence, where all the pianos are Steinway. Loretto, where I learned the viola, is the other.
The photograph above shows Craig Terry (on the right) and Joanna MacGregor presenting Tudor Morris with a framed hammer from a Steinway Model D grand piano once played by Alfred Brendel in the Usher Hall.
Event: Thursday 8 March 2012, 4pm