Integration Piano Week 2025 blends training and efficiency in a three-day workshop and shutting live performance that focuses on bringing classical music coaching along with the most recent in neuroscience, useful anatomy, and the Alexander Approach.
That is the primary time that the Integration Piano Technique can be formally introduced in Canada.
The occasion can be led by pianist and educator Yoshimi Ito and neuroscience researcher Shigeru Yamauchi, each visiting from Japan.
Yoshimi Ito is the founding father of the Integration Piano Technique and Academy, primarily based in Tokyo. She works with musicians to assist them play extra freely, and launch pointless rigidity.
Neuroscience & Alexander Approach Specialist Shigeru Yamauchi is a holistic practitioner, acupuncturist, and authorized Alexander Approach instructor with over 30 years of expertise. He’s co-director of the Integration Academy, bringing a science-informed strategy to artistry and efficiency.
The Alexander Approach
The Alexander Approach, developed by Frederick M. Alexander, makes use of an understanding of anatomy and neuroscience to enhance mind-body coordination, essential to musical efficiency. Born in 1869 in Tasmania, Alexander suffered from ill-health as a toddler.
He was drawn to the humanities, and have become an elocutionist, or skilled reciter. Nonetheless, Alexander would undergo bouts of hoarseness, and had problem respiration on stage at occasions.
In his quest to search out the basis of the issue, he made important discoveries concerning the relationship between unconscious habits and the way they will have an effect on how we carry out sure acts at particular occasions, similar to on stage, or beneath stress.
In essence, The Alexander Approach entails being absolutely aware of every thing you’re doing, each small movement. It’s a way whose validity has been confirmed by physiologists since that point.
The Occasion
The workshop will discover the interconnections between motion, ache, and musical expression, and the way they’re processed within the mind and physique. It’s a science-informed various to the traditions of Western piano pedagogy.
Superior college students, academics, {and professional} musicians who’re coping with accidents or efficiency stress might significantly profit from the knowledge.
Live performance: Threads of Time
The workshop ends with a live performance by performers — Mariko Minematsu, Yuka Kagami, Yoshiko Nagao, Naomi Harada, Ai Homma, and Mariko Avenesian — who’re skilled on this technique, demonstrating its technical and inventive impression.
We requested pianist and educator Yoshimi Ito a couple of questions concerning the occasion.
Yoshimi Ito: Q&A
LV: Why has physicality been ignored in efficiency coaching?
YI: Within the classical music world, the main focus has historically been on interpretation, evaluation, and hours of observe on the instrument. Physicality — how the physique truly strikes, balances, and helps musical expression — has usually been taken as a right. It was assumed that when you practiced sufficient, the physique would “determine it out.” Sadly, that always results in pointless rigidity, damage, or limitations in inventive freedom. What has been lacking is a scientific strategy to join physique consciousness, neuroscience, and musical efficiency.
LV: Is the Alexander Approach changing into extra widespread?
YI: Sure — there’s positively extra consciousness at the moment. Many conservatories {and professional} organizations have began to introduce Alexander Approach, Feldenkrais, or different body-based approaches. Nonetheless, they’re usually supplied as optionally available extras, not but absolutely built-in into the core of music training. Our strategy goes a step additional by combining Alexander rules with present neuroscience and efficiency psychology, making it instantly related to the challenges musicians face on stage.
LV: Have you ever encountered resistance?
YI: There may be resistance, particularly from establishments the place custom runs deep. Some individuals really feel that specializing in the physique distracts from the “actual work” of music. However as soon as musicians expertise the distinction — feeling freer, extra expressive, much less ache — the resistance normally dissolves. It’s much less about altering custom and extra about enriching it with instruments that permit musicians to flourish.
LV: What sort of impression does this science-informed strategy have?
YI: The impression is profound. On a useful stage, it helps performers play with much less effort, keep away from damage, and maintain lengthy careers. But it surely doesn’t cease there: when the nervous system is regulated and the physique is free, the music itself modifications. Tone turns into extra resonant, timing extra natural, and expression extra genuine. It completely helps musicians turn out to be higher artists — not solely technically succesful, however in a position to transfer audiences with real presence.
- Discover particulars and details about the workshop October 21 to 23 at Heliconian Corridor [HERE].
- Discover details about the October 25 live performance on the Glenn Gould Studio [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
