The National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy is awesome. I learned so much and it was wonderful to connect or re-connect with other teachers. The schedule is intense — there are sessions, master classes, recitals, teaching demonstrations, etc., scheduled throughout the day. At certain points in the schedule, you must choose between a handful of sessions to attend — and it is very difficult to make just one choice!
As you know, I blogged quite a few of my conference notes. I used my new iPad Mini to take notes. I really should have invested in one of those little keyboard case things, because typing with the on-screen keyboard was a bit tricky. I apologize about any typos you find in my notes — editing with the touch screen was not easy and auto-correct was also working against me. I have fixed some of the typos, but still have more editing to do.
Typos or no, I hope some of you enjoyed reading about some of the sessions I attended. You should know that reading my notes is nothing like being there in person, though. Start saving for NCKP 2015! 😉
In case you are interested, you can check out some of the handouts from the sessions here on the Francis Clark Center website. Some of the sessions were recorded and live-streamed — you can view those here.
This year at the conference, I made a point of taking more photos. At past conferences, I’ve returned home to realize I had only taken one or two. I did better this time!
Below is a photo of me with some colleagues: my cousin, Sarah; my friend from grad school, Loretta; my friend Yen-Lin from my local MTNA chapter; and my new friend Drema from Vancouver. This was taken in the hotel lobby.
It was great to see Wendy Stevens again at her dinner meet-up. I forgot to get a photo with her! I did get a photo of some the teachers sitting at our table, though. Meet Becky, Mary, and Naria (who is from Brazil!).
Drema and I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Leila Viss.
Later that evening was the meet-up organized by the Professional Piano Teachers facebook group. It was fun to meet some other teachers there, including Jason Sifford (one of the guys behind the University of Iowa Piano Pedagogy Project on YouTube), Deborah Rhine, Kathleen Theisen, Adrienne McKinney, and others.
I caught up with Becky and Mary again, later on during a session in the large ballroom. Mary was kind enough to email me some wonderful photos from her recent piano camp where she used some composer lapbooks with her students. I’ll be sharing those photos later.
There are many great restaurants in Lombard. On Friday evening, my roommates and I went to a restaurant called Greek Island. The food was amazing! 
In the Exhibit Hall, I had the opportunity to meet Jennifer Eklund. I’ve been hearing such good things about her compositions and arrangements so I got a couple books that I can’t wait to try out with my students!
The NCKP is held every-other-year in Lombard, Illinois and is open for any teacher to attend. I am already looking forward to 2015!
Lovely! I’m glad you had lots of fun. It’s nice to see that someone from Vancouver (Canada?) went to the conference. I couldn’t go this year, but I’ll definitely try for 2015. Thanks so much for sharing your notes for the conference. 🙂
(I’ve shared your notes with a bunch of my colleagues. Hopefully it helps everyone out and gets you more readers!)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading through all of your posts. Thanks for taking the time to share!