A former student of legendary pianist, Artur Schnabel, Jeanne Shapiro Bamberger sat comfortably at her piano bench, nestled in her Berkeley Hills home. She meticulously traced her East to West Coast journey that’s reached beyond the boundaries of piano performance. Through decades of creative discovery, Bamberger has synthesized elements of music and cognition; form, structure, analysis, with an understanding of how we react/respond to music. Her work has had a far-reaching effect. Four of her titles are read and respected across an audience of many disciplines, while her popular U.C. Berkeley course, “Music Cognition” draws interest/attendance from diverse academic, scientific and musical communities.

Adding to a prolific output of university-based activities, she’s created a software program that’s allied to the website Tuneblocks.com. It has integrated a community of musicians and technology mavens, some of whom sit in Bamberger’s classroom. Their posted mission “is to build computer-based and hands-on products that will help you develop your creative intuitions while having fun with music.”

http://www.tuneblocks.com/whoarewe.jsp

Bamberger’s list of well-reviewed books include:
The Mind behind the Musical Ear (Harvard University Press, 1995), Developing Musical Intuitions: A Project-based Introduction to Making and Understanding Music (Oxford University Press, 2000), Discovering the Musical Mind: A view of Creativity as Learning(Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Art of Listening.

Of no surprise, Jeanne Bamberger has been regaled as “one of the seminal figures in the fields of music cognition and child development.” (Bio: UC Berkeley, Music Department-http://music.berkeley.edu/people/jeanne-bamberger/)

In our videotaped conversation, Jeanne revealed her inquisitive mind that, in part, sprang from her deep immersion in Philosophy study at the University of Minnesota. Nevertheless, her interest in music, embedded early in life, never waned. Her status as a child prodigy led her to teachers, some of whom embraced the approach of Jacques Dalcroze.

Joanna Graudan, a Russian mentor, who had, herself, studied with Schnabel in Berlin, sent Jeanne to her very own teacher. It forged a lineage that continued through shrinking degrees of separation, to the Contemporary music cosmos at U.C. Berkeley where Roger Sessions became an influential figure in Bamberger’s musical development. (Earlier in her musical journey, Jeanne had studied with Ernst Krenek at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.)

Of particular interest, however, is Jeanne’s recorded memories of lessons with Artur Schnabel that were based in New York City during the 1950’s. In the company of Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank among other notables in fields of performance and musicology, Bamberger provided what is historically significant and of relevance to musicians, students, and educators around the world.

(Note Jeanne Bamberger’s re-labeling of her opening musical excerpt. It’s a Schubert Dance, Op. Posth. 171, #4 in D Major.)

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LINK: Schnabel Music Foundation
http://www.schnabelmusicfoundation.com/