Piano 81

A modest Steinway grand, in the nave of St. Giles, Cripplegate. With lighting chaps all around setting something up for the evening to come. Probably some kind of shoot rather than a public event as it involved at least one of those umbrellas, white inside and black outside, favoured by lighting people for the shooting of models.

Unusual for a parish church to run to such a grand piano; maybe a bequest from one of the people who took a flat in one of the handsome tower blocks round about. A professor at the next door Guildhall School of Music & Drama?

However, search at reference 3 on the key 'piano professor' failed to reveal any such role. All kinds of interesting job titles, but not that one. I associate to art colleges where, so I am led to believe, that any desire to learn to draw or paint in the way, say, of the painters of the tail end of the 19th century, is regarded as very odd. And to think that Dame Trace of Detritus is the professor of drawing at the Royal Academy.

PS: Sunday: following my failure to find a professor of piano yesterday, I was interested to read in the Guardian (reference 4, brought to me by Microsoft), about trouble in the voice department, about a change in emphasis from the serious voice skills needed in a theatre to those good enough for the rather less demanding film or television studio. Resulting in the departure of one Professor Rosenburg after 42 years at the School.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/piano-80.html.

Reference 2: https://www.stgilesnewsite.co.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/.

Reference 4: ‘Without craft, an actor is a liability’: how row over teaching standards is causing a rift in UK theatre industry: Royal Shakespeare Company steps into dispute at Guildhall drama school after senior teacher quits in protest over methods - Dalya Alberge, Guardian - 2024.

Group search key: pianosk.