Steinway Internship Complete

I would like to tell you a little about my internship with the Steinway Society this semester. The purpose of this internship was two-fold: to prepare and promote a solo piano recital.

It involved many hours of practice to memorize and understand all the literature, and I had two teachers to help me. The first was my internship coordinator, Stephany Tiernan, the chair of the piano department at Berklee. Professor Tiernan helped me in the administrative task as well as with the musical ones. My other teacher was Alla Cohen. Professor Cohen and I worked for an hour every other week on interpretation and technique.

My representative at the Steinway Store was Institutional Director Brendan Murphy. Mr. Murphy and I worked together to create fliers and have them printed and put up around school, to chose the piano that I wanted to perform on, and to iron out details related to the performance itself (ie RSVPs, appetizers, chairs, finding a recording engineer).

The concert was last Friday and it was a huge success. There were about 40 people in attendance, most all of them my friends, although my mom and sister flew in from Minnesota for the weekend just to hear the concert. I was nervous, but did a good job of working with my fears and still giving a convincing performance. I tried to encourage a relaxed atmosphere by having the audience members introduce themselves to the people around them, and by speaking briefly about each piece before playing.

The entire experience was immensely rewarding and I would love to do it again!