SPC Music Department
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Piano Program

Introduction

The Music Department at St. Petersburg College provides opportunities for music instruction on several levels. In addition to private music lessons for non-degree-seeking students, we offer a two-year program of traditional academic music instruction leading toward a bachelor’s degree at a transfer institution of the student’s choice. This program consists of four areas of instruction in music: music theory, applied music lessons in the primary performance area, applied music lessons in the secondary performance area, and ensembles.


Overview of SPC Music Departmentpiano

  • Eight performing ensembles.
  • The Music Center, a state-of-the-art, acoustically perfect performing hall, equipped with two new Steinway concert grand pianos.
  • Teaching studios with Steinway grand pianos.
  • A state-of-the-art music technology lab equipped with seventeen Clavinova keyboards; Dell computers and Mac G3 computers; software for sequencing, recording, music notation, and aural training for music theory; and a soundproof booth for recording.
  • Three pipe organs: A new Heissler tracker concert pipe organ in the Music Center, a Zimmer pipe organ in the teaching studio and a Reuter pipe organ in the organ practice room.
  • A harpsichord.
  • Beautiful, newly-remodeled classrooms, sound-proof practice rooms, rehearsal hall, and recital hall.
  • Class sizes that are conducive to learning.
  • Performance opportunities for all students.
  • Distinguished music faculty.
  • Master classes, workshops, and concert series by world-renowned musicians.
  • Low tuition and fees with financial assistance available.
  • Scholarships for qualified students in Band and Chorus. Special scholarships for music majors of up to $750 per semester.
  • Guaranteed transferability of A.A. degrees into any Florida public university.

The Piano Program
The piano department at St. Petersburg College offers piano instruction at all levels.
  • Piano Majors/Principals (audition required): Students accepted as piano majors/principals are required to perform in one student recital each semester and pass the jury exam at the end of each semester.
  • Piano Secondary: Students whose principal performing area is not piano are required to take piano as a secondary instrument. No auditions, performances, or juries are required.
  • Enrichment: Students may register for piano lessons for their personal enrichment. This category includes those who are not pursuing a degree in music, or who already have a college degree. These students are not required to play on a recital or jury exam.
  • Piano Teachers: Local piano teachers who are interested in developing or maintaining their skills as performers and teachers are always welcome in our department. No auditions, performances, or juries are required.
  • Class Piano: A group of piano class is offered to beginning piano students, who meet in groups of six or more. Emphasis is placed on music reading and basic keyboard skills

All piano students have numerous performance opportunities both on campus and in the community. They may attend performances and participate in workshops, seminars, and master classes that are presented by distinguished musicians that visit the SPC campus, such as Leonid Feliksovich Tamulevich (Associate Professor of Piano at St. Petersburg Conservatory, Russia), Paul Posnak (University of Miami), Pascal Roge (International Artist), Rebecca Penneys (Eastman School of Music, St. Petersburg College, visiting artist).


Audition Requirements

  • Piano Performance
    • All major and minor scales and arpeggios, two octaves, quarter note = 120.
    • Sight-reading a short musical excerpt.
    • Three contrasting pieces from memory, selected from the categories below. One of the pieces must be from category A or B.
       
  • Piano Principal
    • All major and minor scales and arpeggios, two octaves, quarter note = 120.
    • Sight-reading a short musical excerpt.
    • Two contrasting pieces from memory, selected from the categories below. One of the pieces must be from category A or B.
  • This is a representative list that can be used as a guideline:
        A. J.S. Bach: Sinfonias, French Suites, Prelude and Fugue from the Well-tempered Clavier
        B. Sonatas by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
        C. A work from the Romantic period: Chopin: Waltzes, Nocturnes, Polonaises, etc.; Schubert: Impromptu
        D. A work from the twentieth century: Debussy, Bartok, etc.


Facilities

In the Fall of 2000, St. Petersburg College celebrated the grand opening of its new Music Center, the only performing venue in the Tampa Bay area with two concert grand Steinway pianos and Heissler Pipe Organ. The hall provides an acoustically superior environment for music performance.

Located in the Humanities building (HS), the Recital Hall (HS 117), is equipped with two new seven-foot Steinway pianos. This hall is frequently used for student recitals, public presentations, studio classes, and rehearsals.

The Music Technology Lab/Piano Lab is one of the most advanced and well-equipped labs in this region. It has seventeen stations, each with a computer and monitor, and a full-range Clavinova touch-sensitive electronic piano with pedals. Computers are installed with software for music sequencing and notation, including Sonar, Finale, Cubase, Digital Performer, Freestyle and Studio Orchestrator. Computers are also equipped with software for music theory remediation and self-tutoring with software such as Indiana University’s ET Drill, Mibac, and Auralia.

Faculty studios are equipped with two grand pianos (one seven-foot Steinway and one six-foot Yamaha or Kawai). Sound-proof practice rooms are available in the practice suite in the Humanities building. At the beginning of each semester, students may reserve practice times in these rooms.


Piano Faculty

Dr. Dolores Gadevsky has served as piano faculty at Chautauqua Institution, the Eastman School of Music,
Los Angeles Conservatory,
the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Csehy Summer School of Music, and the University of Central Arkansas, where she was also a member of the faculty trio. She retired in 2005 from Houghton College, where she was Associate Professor in Piano. While residing in Vienna for eight years she coached at the Weiner Kammeroper, was a free-lance accompanist, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg was accompanist for Rita Streich, Carlos Alexander, and Enrico Mainardi. In recent years she has been invited
to conduct numerous piano master classes, most recently at Taylor University and at Eastern College. She also utilizes every opportunity to participate in chamber music. She is currently serving as Adjunct Professor at St. Petersburg College
in St. Petersburg/Gibbs campus.

Dr. Gadevsky received a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the Eastman School of Music and was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to the Musikhochschule at Freiburg im Breisgau. At the Music Academy in Vienna she studied with Bruno Seidlhofer, where she received the Performer’s Diploma, and in Paris studied briefly with Nadia Boulanger. Her solo and chamber music recitals include numerous performances in Europe, South America, and the United States, including appearances at Brahms Saal in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and La Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango in Bogotá. She has appeared on Austrian National Radio, Colombian National Television, and in California she gave a series of live weekly radio programs devoted to solo piano literature. She was a piano soloist with the Orquesta Fiilarmonica de Bogotá and with the Kern Philharmonic Orchestra, and played the world premiere of the John Cowell Piano Concerto with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center.

Office: HS 122
Phone: 727-341-4360 or 727-460-2219
E-Mail: gadevsky.dolores@spcollege.edu

 

Ms. Lynette Gill - Ms. Lynette Gill, native Kansan, has served on the music faculty at St. Petersburg College since 1996, and has been teaching piano for over 25 years. She has completed post graduate work at the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri in Kansas City, where she studied piano with Richard Cass. Mrs. Gill holds a MM in Piano Performance, with emphasis in Piano Pedagogy, from Wichita State University. She earned her BM degree in Piano Performance, magna cum laude, from WSU. She is a graduate of Grace University, Omaha, Nebraska. Mrs. Gill served on the faculty at Calvary Bible College, Kansas City, Missouri, for ten years and, in addition to teaching piano, organ and music theory, she frequently performed as soloist and accompanist in recitals at the college and in the Kansas City area. Since moving to Florida in 1985, she has continued to perform as piano soloist, accompanist, and church organist. In 1992, she was a member of the Veteran’s Administration National Medical Group Orchestra for its concert tour to Russia, which included performances in Moscow and at St. Petersburg's Glinka Capella. Mrs. Gill is Principal Keyboardist for the Tampa Bay Symphony and is also a member of the Pinellas Park Civic Orchestra. She is staff accompanist/organist at Faith Covenant Church, St. Petersburg, and she maintains an active private piano teaching studio.

        Office: FA 106
        Phone: 727-341-4209 or 727-527-1472
        E-Mail: gill.lynette@spcollege.edu

 

Dr. Cory Hall earned a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in Musicology from the University of Kansas where he was the recipient of the prestigious Graduate Honors Fellowship. Prior to his studies at KU, he taught piano for three years at the Musikschule Wilhelmshohe near Kassel, Germany. He also earned a Master of Music in Piano from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Music in Piano from California State University, Sacramento.

Cory is a specialist in the music of Bach, and is especially interested in interpreting Bach’s works on the piano. He is currently writing a book entitled "Tempo and Duration in the Music of J. S. Bach," which introduces a new theory of proportional time durations and attempts to reconstruct Bach’s standard operating procedures in regards to temporal architecture in virtually all of Bach’s extant compositions. Cory is also a successful performer, having gained such accolades as "Cory Hall played two works of towering artistic content and difficulty with a power and a finish that were startling" (The Sacramento Bee). He is the first pianist to record Alban Berg’s Jugendlieder in entirety (two-CD set with soprano Wendy Zaro and bass-baritone John Stephens) and has judged piano competitions for the M.T.N.A. and the Florida Orchestra. At SPC, Cory Hall teaches Western Humanities, Introduction to Music, and Piano.

        Office: HS 124
        Phone: 727-341-4380
        Email: hall.cory@spcollege.edu
 

Berthe Honein received her Master’s in Musicology and Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of the Holy Spirit-Kaslik (USEK). Professor Honein is multi-lingual and speaks Arabic and French as well as English. Her professional experience includes professor of music languages at USEK, Vice President of the administrative committee of the forum of music institutes of most countries in the Middle East and north of Africa including Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, and Sudan etc. She also served as a professor of psychology and philosophy of music education at the Ecole Normale in Lebanon. For the last seven years, Honein enjoyed a position as the Director of studies and the Academic secretary of the faculty of music at USEK-Lebanon. Honein published a book and CD entitled “Rehna Mechoir”, Lebanese songs for children and two CDs of Lebanese songs for children entitled "Dum Dum Tack" and "Jnaynit Aghani”. In 1995 she published a manual entitled “Do-Mi-SOL” for teaching music.

Office: FA 203
Phone: (727)341-4737 or (727)254-1797
E-Mail: honein.berthe@spcollege.edu