Masterclass Susana Prieto
After the spectacular concert by Duo Melis I was quite curious about the Masterclass with Susana Prieto, the lady of this duo.
When I entered the room she was just busy with Genevieve Lannoy, the only female candidate of the Axis Guitar Competition Cat. 1. All observed by a strikingly large audience.
Both ladies were quite busy with a complicated piece of guitar music, comments and replies flew in a fast and passionate mediterranean way, by turns in fluent English and French. Bearing in mind that Susana Prieto works on the conservatory in Strasbourg -the seat of the European Parliament- I could understand these rapid linguistic switches.
At that moment my heart sank into my boots for a moment. There I was with my relatively easy piece by Sor, and a crippled nail (my index nail got a bit worn down as a consequence of the awakening during my Masterclass with Bungarten). I was not sure whether I liked a desperate experience like this morning, at least not in the presence of all this audience.
After some time it was my turn. My name appeared a pronounciation challenge for someone who is a native speaker in Spanish. I remember the same from a training course which I gave to Venezuelans, they rather called me Mister Mark than breaking their tongues on my last name. Well, I liked the sound of it, and it made things less formal, much better for the working atmosphere.
The phonetics of my last name offered a nice opportunity to get acquainted a bit. I explained that also in Holland many last names are a reference to the native town or region of a family, a custom which is useless nowadays. Well, in Spain -Susana Prieto’s native country- it was the same. So Andres Segovia did not originate from Segovia (the town council wished he did, but unfortunately...).
This relaxed beginning caused my heart to climb out of my boots again, so Les Adieux got on the music stand. Despite the crippled nail, I breasted the tape reasonably.
In a relaxed and amiable way Susana Prieto gave me some hints to give my performance more power and eloquence. First I should concretize my alternating stroke, i.e. make a clear right hand fingering (the same comment as this morning) for all situations I felt insecure about it.
Second I should ‘exaggerate’ more to improve the contrast between melody and accompaniment, particularly in broader chord passages (which requires control of the stroke of individual fingers). Additionally she hinted some fingering changes and advised to use the thumb more often in the final section of the piece, in order to lift the melody from the arpeggio more clearly.
She offered handy hints, made well-wrought observations and explained matters in a pleasant and easy way, providing many examples on the run.
Consequently I concluded the Masterclass in a far better mood that I started it!