2007-2008
MTAC-WLA Contemporary Music Festival

"The art of improvisation is alive and well...Richard Grayson, pianist, took themes suggested by members of the audience everything from High Noon to Peter and the Wolf
and after three or four seconds of deliberation, transformed them into stylistically consistent, harmonically sophisticated works by, as it were, Bach, Gabrieli, Mozart and
Beethoven."
        Karen Monson, Los Angeles Times

"Many years before the irreverent Mozart dazzled his lesser contemporary Salieri in the movie Amadeus, an almost as irreverent professor of music at Occidental College began a yearly ritual in which he dazzles his students with similar virtuosity."
        Douglas Smith, Los Angeles Times

Richard Grayson received his Ph.D in composition from UCLA, and joined the the music faculty of Occidental College in 1969 where he taught until his retirement in 2001. His 32 years of annual keyboard improvisation concerts were a highlight of that college's concert season. In addition to specializing in improvisation, he is a composer of instrumental and vocal music as well as of live electronic music. His awards include a Fulbright Fellowship to Belgium and a composition grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Richard Grayson received his Ph.D in composition from UCLA, and joined the the music faculty of Occidental College in 1969 where he taught until his retirement in 2001. His 32 years of annual keyboard improvisation concerts were a highlight of that college's concert season. In addition to specializing in improvisation, he is a composer of instrumental and vocal music as well as of live electronic music. His awards include a Fulbright Fellowship to Belgium and a composition grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Richard Grayson Website:
http://faculty.oxy.edu/rgrayson/

Since 1980 Richard has given improvisation concerts and seminars for the Yamaha Music Education Foundation in the United States, and has been invited three times to Tokyo to perform and teach. He has also been a featured performer at two national Piano Pedagogy conferences and was twice invited to give master classes in improvisation at the Oficina de Musica Festival in Curitiba, Brazil.

His performance credits include six recordings of contemporary music on which he is featured as pianist, and four which include his compositions. For many years he was on the board of the Monday Evening concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and frequently performed on that series.

Three of Richard's electronic keyboard works were performed at an historic University of Massachusetts, Lowell concert featuring the re-creation of Antheil's complete Ballet Mécanique. Two of these pieces, "Mr. 528" and "Shoot the Piano Player" have been issued on CD by the Electronic Music Foundation in New York. In September of 2001 he gave a solo concert of his improvisation and visual-electronic compositions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  In 2002 and 2003 he was a featured performer at the Music Teachers' Association of California annual convention. Since Fall, 2001 he has taught Music Theory courses at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica and is on the faculty of the Aube Tzerko Piano Academy at the New Roads School, also in Santa Monica.  He has been the organist at St. Martin of Tours Church in West Los Angeles since 1981.
 

Deborah H. How, Chair

 Guidelines:

1. Each teacher is allowed a maximum of 15 minutes of total playing time for students CM Levels 4-9.
2. Teachers with CM Advanced Level students participating are allowed a maximum of 20 minutes to accommodate a FEW longer Advanced Level pieces.
3. You may divide your total time among as many students as you wish, as long as you do not exceed 15 minutes for teachers with students in Levels 4-9, or 20 minutes for teachers with students in Levels 4-Advanced.
4. Please provide accurate timings!  Please no repeats unless structurally necessary.
5. Students must have previous performing experience and be playing at CM Level 4 or higher.  Students do not need to participate in CM in order to be eligible for the Contemporary Festival.
6. Instrumental and vocal ensembles are encouraged to apply.  At least one member of the ensemble must be a student of an MTAC-WLA branch member.
7. Entry fee per student or ensemble: $18.00
8. Please send one check per studio for all entry fees made payable to "MTAC-WLA" and mail to Deborah H. How; entry fees must be postmarked by April 19, 2008.
9. Repertoire is to be freely chosen from the Certificate of Merit "Twentieth Century" or "Contemporary Pedagogical Composers" lists.
   Works by appropriate contemporaries are acceptable.
   Original compositions by students are acceptable.
10. All piano solo and vocal solo literature must be memorized.  Memorization is optional for instrumental solo literature and ensemble literature.