American pianist, Robert McDonald, has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Far East, both as solo recitalist and as recital partner to Isaac Stern, Midori, and many others. He is an active chamber musician and has collaborated with the Juilliard, American, Muir, Takács, Brentano, Fine Arts, Vermeer, and Borromeo string quartets, as well as Musicians from Marlboro, and given concerts for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, NHK, and BBC television Worldwide.

McDonald is a member of the piano faculties at both The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music and gives classes during the year at the Glenn Gould Professional School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. For the past twenty-six summers, he has directed the keyboard program at the Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico.

His discography includes recordings for Sony Classical, Vox, Bridge, Musical Heritage Society, and CRI. Recently released is an album of French sonata repertoire with Midori for Sony Classical that received the Deutscher Schallplatten Critic’s Prize. Among numerous awards, prizes and grants, McDonald won the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Competition in Italy, and top prizes at both the William Kapell and Washington International Competitions. He is also the recipient of the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Award and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Piano Teachers Congress is pleased to have Mr. McDonald return to teach a master class with our honors students; early in his career, Robert was a winner of the Congress' Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition.

In this lecture, Edna Golandsky, Artistic Director and Co-Founder of The Golandsky Institute, will demonstrate the technical and musical components that result in an alive, vibrant and compelling performance. She will discuss, among other things, how to produce beautiful sounds, long melodic lines and rhythmic vitality.

Edna Golandsky has earned wide acclaim throughout the United States and abroad for her extraordinary ability to solve technical problems and for her penetrating musical insight. She received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School, following which she continued her studies with Dorothy Taubman. Ms. Golandsky also co-founded the Taubman Institute, of which she was Associate Artistic Director from 1976-2002.

In June 2003, Ms. Golandsky and senior faculty members previously affiliated with the Taubman Institute formed the Golandsky Institute, which is the pre-eminent center for the study, advancement, and dissemination of the Taubman Approach. The Institute conducts an annual symposium and festival every July at Princeton University. More information on the Institute can be found at www.golandskyinstitute.org.

Ms. Golandsky presents the Taubman Approach in its entirety in the 10-DVD set The Taubman Techniques. In conjunction with the Golandsky Institute, she has further developed the Taubman Approach in the 3-DVD set, The Art of Rhythmic Expression, and the 2-DVD set, The Forgotten Lines: Lines that Support, Surround, and Intensify the Melody. She has also created Healthy Typing, a DVD that teaches computer and BlackBerry users how to type without pain. More information can be found at www.healthytyping.com.

Ms. Golandsky has lectured and conducted master classes at some of the most prestigious music institutions in the US, including the Eastman School of Music, Yale University, Harvard University, the Curtis Institute, and Oberlin Conservatory, as well as internationally. She has also presented at the Music Teacher’s National Association, World Piano Pedagogy Conference, and the European Piano Teacher’s Association.