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WBAA Arts Spotlight: Tippecanoe Music Teachers Association

John Clare

Tippecanoe Music Teachers Association (TMTA) provides many educational and performance opportunities for area piano students through events such as the Sunday Showcase Recitals, Achievement in Music Festival, and Indiana Music Teacher's Association District Auditions as well as continuing education opportunities for members. The 2017 Monster Concert, a grand piano extravaganza, is Thursday, June 8 at 7:00pm at Long Center for the Performing Arts.  It features piano ensemble music, performed on ten pianos by over 175 pianists, grade 3 to adult, playing in groups of up to 20 at a time. WBAA's John Clare spoke to TMTA member and teacher Nadya Dubikovsky about the group.

Find out more about TMTA and their events here.

Credit Rachel Witt
Piano at the West Lafayette Public Library

In conjunction with the 2017 Monster Concert, TMTA is producing a public arts/music project for the Greater Lafayette area from June 2 to June 19.  “Pianos for the Street” will place six decorated pianos at various locations in Lafayette and West Lafayette for the playing pleasure of the public.  This is a repeat of the project TMTA did in the summer of 2014.  Pianos are being painted by the residents of Westminster Village, Elizabeth Lincourt and her son Ben, and the Morton Youth Artists instructed by Jeannette Rehmel.

Monster Concerts have a long history in Lafayette, dating to 1979 when area adult pianists performed the first of four Monster Concerts that were a part of the Midsummer Arts Festival.   The Piano Teachers Network (now the Tippecanoe Music Teachers Association) began producing the biennial concerts for students in 1987.   With this year’s concert, over 2,000 students have had the opportunity to experience piano teamwork on a large scale.   Since 1989, TMTA has presented a concert piano bench to the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, helped in the maintenance of the LSO Steinway concert grand piano, contributed to the purchase and maintenance of a grand piano for community use at the West Lafayette Public Library, provided a concert bench for that piano, and helped support the annual West Lafayette Musicale’s Jamieson Piano Competition.   Several years ago, TMTA donated a Steinway grand piano and concert bench to the Tippecanoe Arts Federation which TMTA had housed and maintained at TAF for many years.

See Rachel Witt painting the piano that is at the West Lafayette Public Library in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCoIlldsEZ4">video.

John Nasukaluk Clare is comfortable behind a microphone, streaming video or playing violin. A former broadcaster for NPR, John has previously worked with Voice of America, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation and stations in Texas, Kansas, Nevada, California, and Pennsylvania. In 2005, Clare earned the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP for radio broadcasting, citing his work on 20/20 Hearing. Having performed with famed tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, John has worked with the Mozart Festival Texas, Mid Texas Symphony, Nevada Chamber Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, Abilene Philharmonic and Wichita Symphony Orchestra.