Preparing a stylistically unfamiliar piano work for performance : practice-led writing on Ross Edwards's Kumari

Performers of music are increasingly undertaking scholarly enquiry in the form if practice-led research. This can be about the stages in process of learning a work, or can be performers' analyses of specific works, offering other practitioners approaches and strategies for their own practice. In this paper, the pianist-authors found that other research involving the learning processes of musicians seldom examined specific pieces of music, and that limited attention had been devoted to the earliest stages of learning a stylistically challenging or new piece of art music. Through their learning experience of the piano piece Kumari, by Ross Edwards, including self-analysis and mutual interview, the authors have found that sharing preparation experiences and discussing differences in approach led to a clarification of the importance of textual understanding prior to note-learning, as well as fascinating similarities and differences of interpretation.