2021 has started with some exciting news in the teaching world. First, I was honored to cover part of the position held by harpsichord teacher Mayumi Kamata at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm during Winter term 2021. This has been such a nice opportunity for me, although it came in the middle of an hectic studying period! Then a temporarily professorship in harpsichord came from the conservatory of Cagliari (Sardinia). Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I had to give up the plan to fly there from Stockholm. As it is always the case in the Italian recruiting system, one has to sign the contract in presence, within a couple of days. Thus I had to renounce to this beautiful job. ALAS! However, you never know what’s coming around the corner, and one shut door might mean a new open one on the next turn!
It feels important for me to pass on my knowledge in the field of historical keyboards to the next generations! The teachers who meant a lot in my musical growth are always so present in my mind. I will never get tired to say how important it is to build solid bases on which to bild up one’s own personality and originality. Without good bases there cannot be good art. Great teachers are such a precious gift! What a blessing to pass on knowledge to other humans! What a beautiful thing! Socrates and Plato knew it already back then … And, from the point of view of a student, there is nothing bad in admitting that someone knows more than us! I agree with Maestro Socrates, after all, that “I know only one thing: that I know nothing!”. This is of course a provocative, typical Socratic statement. Inteligenti pauca. Any journey into our own way of becoming artists would benefit by thinking that ‘we know that we know nothing’. Needless to say, the Greeks had already understood one or two things about human nature!
