Hello world!

Hello, reader. My name is Steve Harlos, and I am a collaborative pianist. In case you are wondering what that is, it means that most of my work at the piano is with other people. I am starting a blogsite here devoted mainly to the art of piano collaboration, but I have other thoughts of a more general nature which I want to share as we get further into the discussions. This could become a network of collaborators which could be very informative and entertaining.

WHAT GOT ME GOING ON THIS PAGE

I have been thinking about doing a weblog for some time, but this week I am working as a collaborative pianist for the University of Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, an annual affair which brings together some of the top clarinet artists in the world for an orgy of concerts, workshops, exhibitors, networking, etc. Yesterday I had a coffee break with an old friend from my college days at IU. His name is Gary Kosloski, and he’s a wonderful violinist.

He was commenting on the difficulty of finding pianists to work with his students on serious repertoire. I was thinking about that comment and it made me realize that things are different where I teach at the University of North Texas. There we have a hard working bunch of terrific pianists who enjoy collaborating and will play the most challenging repertoire (usually for a fee, but our time is valuable). I am the coordinator of collaborative piano at UNT, and right now we have a Masters degree and are working toward a DMA in Collaborative Piano.

The other collaborative pianist here doing the same thing as I am doing is Gail Novak, who I met at the International ClarinetFest in Ostende, Belgium. She is a wonderful collaborative pianist and knows the clarinet repertoire intimately.   We had a chance to catch up on things and that also got me thinking about this blogsite.

WHAT I AM HOPING TO ACHIEVE

I would like for this to be a forum for collaborative pianists. I have ideas and experiences to share, and if you do as well, feel free to comment on this site and together we can develop a resource for like-minded musicians.