THE ACCESSIBLE ACCOMPANIMENTS STORY
Pianists know the feeling: perhaps new to the world of collaborative piano or vocal collaboration, you haven’t yet built up a large repertoire of the standard vocal literature and then, while sight-reading an extra masterclass or a last-minute audition, someone places an excerpt like Ravel’s Fire Aria or Strauss’s Composer Aria in front of you. Similarly, singers, you might remember that one time you brought in a beloved aria to an audition that your regular pianist couldn't attend...and you (and the poor audition panel) were then subjected to a completely butchered "accompaniment" that threw your audition off the rails. While looking back on such a harrowing experience may be amusing later on, it’s certainly not funny to be in such a situation in that moment! In fact, it was hearing about just such an experience (in which a friend was made to sight-read a nasty French aria at someone’s audition and another friend was forced to take that same aria out of her aria package because too many pianists couldn't handle it) that gave me the initial idea to embark upon this project. I knew that my friend Carol had done much the same thing with her Frustrated Accompanist reductions of popular string concerti, but to my knowledge, no one had yet offered anything like that for the operatic literature, a repertory for which having playable reductions would seem even more necessary due to the fact that singers must work with pianists and coaches much more closely during the learning process than instrumentalists usually do.
As with many collaborative pianists, I came into the field of accompanying relatively late in my musical education and at a point when I was already pursuing several other musical avenues (like pursuing a PhD in music theory, earning a minor in composition, teaching piano privately, and tutoring several theory and aural skills students). Thus, even at the beginning I understood the time constraints that many accompanists face and the problem of needing to “rearrange” certain pieces and passages on the fly! My extensive background in composition and music theory/aural skills, along with my life experience as a pianist with small hands, uniquely qualifies me to create aria reductions that are not only physically ergonomic (and, possibly, sight-readable by a confident player), but also musically satisfying and supportive.
So, then, who is this collection for? Just to name a few:
This collection’s reductions boast several unique features:
In addition to the above Accessible Accompaniments, you can also find selected audition/recital solo cuts of almost-arias that have interjections from other cast members or ensembles that make them awkward to play when read from the traditional vocal scores. In most cases, these have not been pianistically simplified, but have been condensed so that the parts that are traditionally cut are simply not included in the scores. The Accessible Accompaniments catalog has additionally expanded to include modern performing editions of selected older arias that did not previously have modern-clef vocal scores as well as adaptations of certain art song selections optimized for small-hand playing.
As with many collaborative pianists, I came into the field of accompanying relatively late in my musical education and at a point when I was already pursuing several other musical avenues (like pursuing a PhD in music theory, earning a minor in composition, teaching piano privately, and tutoring several theory and aural skills students). Thus, even at the beginning I understood the time constraints that many accompanists face and the problem of needing to “rearrange” certain pieces and passages on the fly! My extensive background in composition and music theory/aural skills, along with my life experience as a pianist with small hands, uniquely qualifies me to create aria reductions that are not only physically ergonomic (and, possibly, sight-readable by a confident player), but also musically satisfying and supportive.
So, then, who is this collection for? Just to name a few:
- Accompanists who are often called upon to play last-minute engagements dealing with a large amount of repertoire and who cannot always find time to brush up on the more difficult arias in the meantime
- Younger or less experienced accompanists who may not have the time or technical skills needed to learn the more involved standard reductions of the arias in this volume
- Accompanists with smaller hands and/or with a history of playing-related injuries who need more ergonomically sound reductions during long audition-playing days
- Singers who don’t want to tempt fate by bringing in a pianistically difficult aria for an audition with a provided accompanist, but would still like to use that aria because it shows off their voices well or they are auditioning for that role
- Singers who don’t get to work with coaches as often as they’d like and often must manage to play through their own accompaniments themselves
- Voice teachers at smaller universities or in private studios who may have inexperienced pianists playing for their students or who may have to play for their own students
- Piano teachers who include collaborative piano instruction in their studios
- Fans of great operatic repertoire who would like to study some well-known arias in a friendly, easy-to-read format
This collection’s reductions boast several unique features:
- No reduction ever requires stretches of over an octave, not including bass notes meant to be held or “fudged” with the pedal (though octaves may also contain chord tones within them). This reduces the amount of rearranging that smaller-handed pianists must already do. Obviously, further reworkings are to be expected and pianists should feel free to add to or modify what I’ve provided.
- I’ve included less essential, but potentially desirable additional voices/passages in cue-size noteheads so that pianists can easily see them, but know that they are not necessary in a “sink or swim” accompanying situation. Presenting less essential material in cue-size noteheads also reduces visual clutter on the page.
- In addition to the composer’s markings, when needed, I have included hints on particular notes to bring out when the singer is likely to need them as a pitch anchor or when it is not obvious which line should be brought out within the texture.
- All page turns have been carefully selected, when possible, so as to result in the least possible disruption to the pianist. When an inevitable page turn precedes a potentially surprising note or chord, I’ve included the next downbeat’s notes in cue-size stemless noteheads at the end of the preceding measure.
- I have preserved beams in 8th and smaller note values within the vocal parts so that pianists, some of whom might not be accustomed to syllabic beaming conventions, will find it easier to follow the singer’s rhythms while reading potentially unfamiliar arias.
- When known, I’ve noted alternate cuts that singers might like to take within certain arias.
- In some cases I’ve modernized spelling conventions for easier readability (for example, by replacing “ß” with “ss” in German arias) and enharmonically respelled brief passages or added key signatures for greater clarity.
In addition to the above Accessible Accompaniments, you can also find selected audition/recital solo cuts of almost-arias that have interjections from other cast members or ensembles that make them awkward to play when read from the traditional vocal scores. In most cases, these have not been pianistically simplified, but have been condensed so that the parts that are traditionally cut are simply not included in the scores. The Accessible Accompaniments catalog has additionally expanded to include modern performing editions of selected older arias that did not previously have modern-clef vocal scores as well as adaptations of certain art song selections optimized for small-hand playing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: “But why? You should really give your pianist enough time to prepare this aria from the standard vocal score/this aria is standard rep and anyone who knows Chopsticks should know this aria.”
A: Ideally, yes, you should log ample rehearsal time with your pianist beforehand and seek out experienced pianists with a wide-ranging repertoire. But unfortunately, real-life circumstances don’t always conform to our ideals—for reasons beyond our control—so Accessible Accompaniments will allow you (whether pianist or singer) to make the best out of an otherwise potentially uncomfortable situation, whether it’s sight-reading a block of auditions, jumping in for an injured/ill/snowed-in pianist at the last minute, performing in a rural area where highly experienced collaborative pianists are not always readily available, and other such situations. Pianists an also use these editions as jumping-off points to which they can add inner voices, instrument indications, etc. and fashion their own performing editions that may look less cluttered than one they could create by annotating the original vocal score.
Q: “Will you arrange (insert aria here)?”
A: Possibly! Feel free to send a message and I’ll consider your suggestion. Keep in mind that copyright laws will prevent me from offering arrangements of much of the 20th-century literature for purchase on the site, however. While that won’t necessarily stop pianists from creating arrangements for their own personal use, this means I could not publish an aria still under copyright or whose composer has forbidden outside arrangements. Countries outside the US may also have more restrictive copyright laws, preventing me from selling certain selections there. I also reserve the right to designate your request an aural transcription project (subject to those rates) if the accompaniment rendering you desire is so far removed from the available score that I'll have to transcribe it entirely by ear.
Q: “I’m used to hearing octave doubling (or some other line) here—why aren’t there doubled octaves in this passage?”
A: Aside from keeping the scores as uncluttered as possible, I sometimes eliminate string octave doublings for reasons of tuning. Because pianos are tuned in equal temperament (rather than to pure intervals) and fall out of tune quickly, octaves on the piano are never going to sound as pure and in tune as octaves played by instruments that allow complete control over intonation (like strings). So they will sound muddier at best and slightly dissonant at worst. When clarity is a goal—as it should be in all cases—eliminating unnecessary octave doublings may assist with that.
Q: "Won't it mess up a pianist to have a score that looks so different from what they're used to playing?"
A: That's possible in cases where the pianist knows the aria well. This is why we recommend bringing two score copies to each audition/competition: one Accessible Accompaniment edition and one in the more commonly published edition. You may then offer the pianist a choice between the two, the original or the "clean, typeset copy." In almost every case, the pianist who has not previously learned that particular aria will choose the Accessible Accompaniment!
Q: "Who do you think you are that you can alter someone else's music, especially if it's something written for the piano?"
A: The first thing to keep in mind is that the whole "the score is sacred and immutable" movement is a 20th-century artifact motivated by recording technology and not actually accurate to how composers perceived their music (and music in general) in earlier times. As someone born in the 20th or 21st century (unless you're a time traveler!), you'll need to unlearn that. As an acclaimed composer myself, and as a specialist in 18th and 19th-century composition/improvisation and their pedagogy techniques, I understand more deeply than most arrangers that we're all just colleagues manipulating the same tonal grammar constructs. Chopin is a great example: he gave his publishers fits because he would never even play his own compositions in the same way twice. His trademark improvisational freedom cast doubt on which version of a given piece should be the one to be published. By the way, if you're interested in learning about what I mean by "18th/19th-century composition/improvisation pedagogy techniques," click here to be taken to my studio website for some information and resources.
A: Ideally, yes, you should log ample rehearsal time with your pianist beforehand and seek out experienced pianists with a wide-ranging repertoire. But unfortunately, real-life circumstances don’t always conform to our ideals—for reasons beyond our control—so Accessible Accompaniments will allow you (whether pianist or singer) to make the best out of an otherwise potentially uncomfortable situation, whether it’s sight-reading a block of auditions, jumping in for an injured/ill/snowed-in pianist at the last minute, performing in a rural area where highly experienced collaborative pianists are not always readily available, and other such situations. Pianists an also use these editions as jumping-off points to which they can add inner voices, instrument indications, etc. and fashion their own performing editions that may look less cluttered than one they could create by annotating the original vocal score.
Q: “Will you arrange (insert aria here)?”
A: Possibly! Feel free to send a message and I’ll consider your suggestion. Keep in mind that copyright laws will prevent me from offering arrangements of much of the 20th-century literature for purchase on the site, however. While that won’t necessarily stop pianists from creating arrangements for their own personal use, this means I could not publish an aria still under copyright or whose composer has forbidden outside arrangements. Countries outside the US may also have more restrictive copyright laws, preventing me from selling certain selections there. I also reserve the right to designate your request an aural transcription project (subject to those rates) if the accompaniment rendering you desire is so far removed from the available score that I'll have to transcribe it entirely by ear.
Q: “I’m used to hearing octave doubling (or some other line) here—why aren’t there doubled octaves in this passage?”
A: Aside from keeping the scores as uncluttered as possible, I sometimes eliminate string octave doublings for reasons of tuning. Because pianos are tuned in equal temperament (rather than to pure intervals) and fall out of tune quickly, octaves on the piano are never going to sound as pure and in tune as octaves played by instruments that allow complete control over intonation (like strings). So they will sound muddier at best and slightly dissonant at worst. When clarity is a goal—as it should be in all cases—eliminating unnecessary octave doublings may assist with that.
Q: "Won't it mess up a pianist to have a score that looks so different from what they're used to playing?"
A: That's possible in cases where the pianist knows the aria well. This is why we recommend bringing two score copies to each audition/competition: one Accessible Accompaniment edition and one in the more commonly published edition. You may then offer the pianist a choice between the two, the original or the "clean, typeset copy." In almost every case, the pianist who has not previously learned that particular aria will choose the Accessible Accompaniment!
Q: "Who do you think you are that you can alter someone else's music, especially if it's something written for the piano?"
A: The first thing to keep in mind is that the whole "the score is sacred and immutable" movement is a 20th-century artifact motivated by recording technology and not actually accurate to how composers perceived their music (and music in general) in earlier times. As someone born in the 20th or 21st century (unless you're a time traveler!), you'll need to unlearn that. As an acclaimed composer myself, and as a specialist in 18th and 19th-century composition/improvisation and their pedagogy techniques, I understand more deeply than most arrangers that we're all just colleagues manipulating the same tonal grammar constructs. Chopin is a great example: he gave his publishers fits because he would never even play his own compositions in the same way twice. His trademark improvisational freedom cast doubt on which version of a given piece should be the one to be published. By the way, if you're interested in learning about what I mean by "18th/19th-century composition/improvisation pedagogy techniques," click here to be taken to my studio website for some information and resources.
ABOUT THE ARRANGER
Praised as a "sensitive pianist" and "outstanding accompanist" who delivers "powerful interpretations," Nicole Elyse DiPaolo enjoys a multifaceted career as a sought-after collaborative pianist, educational composer, arranger, coach, private teacher, and adjunct music professor. Ms. DiPaolo has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Ambassador Chamber Players on multiple occasions (two of which also featured her own Piano Trio in C minor) and as a recitalist, collaborator, and presenter worldwide.
Currently, Ms. DiPaolo is an online Adjunct Lecturer in Music (Music in General Studies) at Indiana University; the Principal Theory Teacher at Liberty Park Music, an online-only video subscription-based music school; an invited blog contributor and guest instructor at Tonebase; and a sought-after online instructor of piano, music theory, and composition. She has additionally been an online teaching artist for the Tunaweza Kimuziki cultural/artistic exchange program+, through which IU instructors teach undergraduate music students in Kenya via Zoom and WhatsApp. Ms. DiPaolo was also on the composition and collaborative piano faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in 2014 and 2015. In line with her belief that effective music performance instructors should also be distinguished performers (past or present), Ms. DiPaolo recently appeared with the storied Singers' Club of Cleveland men's choir as their accompanist at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gartner Auditorium. In June 2018, she was a Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Bay View Music Festival in Petoskey, Michigan, performing with the festival's SOARS voice program participants on fully staged opera scenes and art song recitals as well as in the Bay View Young Artist Series (Charlevoix, MI). She then joined the Spooky Goose Opera team as an online coach/pianist for their Quarantine Concert Series, the world's first livestreamed Zoom production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (summer 2020), which was nominated for a Broadway World award, and new opera projects under development.
Recent performing highlights include giving the world premiere of H. Leslie Adams' Grand March for trumpet and piano in the composer's presence, as well as performing several selections at a 90th birthday gala for Dr. Adams; a performance with the Singers' Club of Cleveland at the Cleveland Museum of Art; a Christmas concert with members of the Cleveland Pops; two performances as a substitute keyboardist with the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra; solo appearances with Sing for Hope's Healing Arts Initiative, presenting a curated program entitled "The Singing Piano" (May and June 2021); and a virtual appearance in the 2021 Classical Singer vocal performance competition. Other notable engagements include the 2020 Spooky Goose Opera Quarantine Concert Series (5 concerts to date); the 2016, 2017, and 2019 National Society of Arts and Letters Vocal Competitions (multiple entrants); the "Opera Night at North" benefit concert with students of IU's top-ranked opera program (among them "Accidental Tenor" Andrew Lunsford); and two long-term, international cruise ship performing contracts with violinist Amy Lee as the Duo del Mare. Additionally, she recorded an album of unique folksong settings with bass-baritone and IU Kelley School of Business professor Timothy Fort, which is included in his new business ethics text, Vision of the Firm. Among other engagements at IU, she was the rehearsal pianist/coach for a summer production of John Frederick Lampe's little-known Baroque opera Pyramus and Thisbe.
Ms. DiPaolo began formal music study at age 5 in the Detroit area. At age 10 she enrolled in the University of Michigan's preparatory piano program, and she performed her first full solo recital at age 11; additionally, she spent three summer sessions at the All-State Piano Program at Interlochen, where she won awards in music theory and piano literature. Ms. DiPaolo continues to perform while maintaining a private online studio, continuing a teaching lineage that can be traced through Bela Bartok (a great-grand-instructor) to Franz Liszt and Beethoven. Her principal teachers have included Michele Cooker, Louis Nagel, Joanne Smith, and Alan Huckleberry; she has also had the pleasure of undertaking additional coaching with Menahem Pressler, Waleed Howrani, Christopher Harding, Donald Morelock, Philip Bush, John Ellis, and the late Eugene Bossart. She holds a B.Mus in Music Theory from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she studied piano under Dr. Nagel; additionally, she studied composition with Bright Sheng and basso continuo (harpsichord accompaniment) with Edward Parmentier. Ms. DiPaolo also holds an MM in Music Theory from Indiana University-Bloomington, where she has achieved PhD candidacy alongside a completed doctoral minor in composition (under Claude Baker, Don Freund, P. Q. Phan, and David Schneider) and studies in French and German diction (under Gary Arvin) to complement her frequent collaborations with IU's voice students. Ms. DiPaolo has undertaken more recent piano pedagogy studies with Russian approach expert Irina Gorin, the author of the Tales of a Musical Journey piano method, and is Level 1 and Level 2 certified in Tales. She is currently enrolled in the Royal Conservatory (RCM) online teacher mentorship program administered by Jonathan Roberts, and she regularly seeks such professional development opportunities in order to grow as a pedagogue.
When not on the piano bench, Ms. DiPaolo continues to compose and arrange, and her compositions have been described as "brilliant" (PianoDao), as well as "very effective" with a "fantastic amount of intrigue," "mindfulness...[and] colorful nuance" (Seven Sky Music). Ms. DiPaolo's music has been heard across the world. Along with numerous performances in the Midwest, her commissioned song settings of Muscogee poet laureate Alexander Posey's texts have been performed nationwide, and the Smithsonian Institution procured copies of two of these (Nature's Blessings and A Vision) to archive at the National Museum of the American Indian. Ms. DiPaolo's music also received its Mexican premiere in 2013 with a performance of her Divertimento, written for the International String Quartet of Yucatán. In 2014 Ms. DiPaolo published a set of twenty short pedagogical pieces in uncommon keys, entitled Venturing Beyond, for early-intermediate pianists of all ages, available on SheetMusicPlus and MusicaNeo, and she recently completed Vignettes, a new set of pedagogical pieces that will introduce intermediate pianists to the Impressionist language of Maurice Ravel. While living in Bloomington, Ms. DiPaolo was commissioned to create a choral arrangement of "Ride," the city of Bloomington's official bicentennial song, for the Bloomington Community Song Project. After she relocated to Cleveland, her Divertimento and Lucid Dreaming for solo harp were featured at the "She Scores" new music festival, celebrating women composers with ties to Ohio, held at Case Western Reserve University in June 2022 and rebroadcast on Mark Satola's "Cleveland Ovations" program on WCLV radio (90.3) in October. Most recently, Ms. DiPaolo's Nocturne in G-sharp minor was selected for inclusion in 22 Nocturnes for Chopin, a collection of Chopin-inspired piano compositions and published by EVC Music (dist. Hal Leonard) in fall 2023. Also a sought-after composition teacher and adjudicator, Ms. DiPaolo frequently judges state, regional, and divisional MTNA composition competitions at all levels, ranging from elementary to college-level Young Artists. In her private online studio, she has recently expanded her curricular offerings to include partimento and other historical methods of teaching tonal composition and improvisation. (Click here to find out more about these methods.) An enthusiastic and frequent podcast guest, Ms. DiPaolo has appeared on podcasts with the Nikhil Hogan Show, Motif Music Studios, Ultimate Music Theory, Web Piano Academy, and the Piano Sight Reading Community to discuss her compositions and various piano pedagogy topics.
When not working on one of her many concurrent musical projects, Ms. DiPaolo might be found completing academic editing projects as the owner of Superlative Proofreading and Editing Services, maintaining several music-related social media communities, looking for opportunities to maintain her Spanish and Italian language skills, and raising and releasing monarch butterflies with the MonarchWatch tagging program. Having lived in Detroit, southern Indiana, and Cleveland at various points, she is now based in Nashville, Tennessee, where she resides with her husband Jason and a rotating cast of pet and houseguest butterflies.
To learn more about Ms. DiPaolo’s many and varied performing, teaching, and publishing pursuits, please visit her artist website at ndipaolo.musicaneo.com.
Separate collaborative piano and academic CVs are available upon request.
Currently, Ms. DiPaolo is an online Adjunct Lecturer in Music (Music in General Studies) at Indiana University; the Principal Theory Teacher at Liberty Park Music, an online-only video subscription-based music school; an invited blog contributor and guest instructor at Tonebase; and a sought-after online instructor of piano, music theory, and composition. She has additionally been an online teaching artist for the Tunaweza Kimuziki cultural/artistic exchange program+, through which IU instructors teach undergraduate music students in Kenya via Zoom and WhatsApp. Ms. DiPaolo was also on the composition and collaborative piano faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in 2014 and 2015. In line with her belief that effective music performance instructors should also be distinguished performers (past or present), Ms. DiPaolo recently appeared with the storied Singers' Club of Cleveland men's choir as their accompanist at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gartner Auditorium. In June 2018, she was a Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Bay View Music Festival in Petoskey, Michigan, performing with the festival's SOARS voice program participants on fully staged opera scenes and art song recitals as well as in the Bay View Young Artist Series (Charlevoix, MI). She then joined the Spooky Goose Opera team as an online coach/pianist for their Quarantine Concert Series, the world's first livestreamed Zoom production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (summer 2020), which was nominated for a Broadway World award, and new opera projects under development.
Recent performing highlights include giving the world premiere of H. Leslie Adams' Grand March for trumpet and piano in the composer's presence, as well as performing several selections at a 90th birthday gala for Dr. Adams; a performance with the Singers' Club of Cleveland at the Cleveland Museum of Art; a Christmas concert with members of the Cleveland Pops; two performances as a substitute keyboardist with the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra; solo appearances with Sing for Hope's Healing Arts Initiative, presenting a curated program entitled "The Singing Piano" (May and June 2021); and a virtual appearance in the 2021 Classical Singer vocal performance competition. Other notable engagements include the 2020 Spooky Goose Opera Quarantine Concert Series (5 concerts to date); the 2016, 2017, and 2019 National Society of Arts and Letters Vocal Competitions (multiple entrants); the "Opera Night at North" benefit concert with students of IU's top-ranked opera program (among them "Accidental Tenor" Andrew Lunsford); and two long-term, international cruise ship performing contracts with violinist Amy Lee as the Duo del Mare. Additionally, she recorded an album of unique folksong settings with bass-baritone and IU Kelley School of Business professor Timothy Fort, which is included in his new business ethics text, Vision of the Firm. Among other engagements at IU, she was the rehearsal pianist/coach for a summer production of John Frederick Lampe's little-known Baroque opera Pyramus and Thisbe.
Ms. DiPaolo began formal music study at age 5 in the Detroit area. At age 10 she enrolled in the University of Michigan's preparatory piano program, and she performed her first full solo recital at age 11; additionally, she spent three summer sessions at the All-State Piano Program at Interlochen, where she won awards in music theory and piano literature. Ms. DiPaolo continues to perform while maintaining a private online studio, continuing a teaching lineage that can be traced through Bela Bartok (a great-grand-instructor) to Franz Liszt and Beethoven. Her principal teachers have included Michele Cooker, Louis Nagel, Joanne Smith, and Alan Huckleberry; she has also had the pleasure of undertaking additional coaching with Menahem Pressler, Waleed Howrani, Christopher Harding, Donald Morelock, Philip Bush, John Ellis, and the late Eugene Bossart. She holds a B.Mus in Music Theory from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she studied piano under Dr. Nagel; additionally, she studied composition with Bright Sheng and basso continuo (harpsichord accompaniment) with Edward Parmentier. Ms. DiPaolo also holds an MM in Music Theory from Indiana University-Bloomington, where she has achieved PhD candidacy alongside a completed doctoral minor in composition (under Claude Baker, Don Freund, P. Q. Phan, and David Schneider) and studies in French and German diction (under Gary Arvin) to complement her frequent collaborations with IU's voice students. Ms. DiPaolo has undertaken more recent piano pedagogy studies with Russian approach expert Irina Gorin, the author of the Tales of a Musical Journey piano method, and is Level 1 and Level 2 certified in Tales. She is currently enrolled in the Royal Conservatory (RCM) online teacher mentorship program administered by Jonathan Roberts, and she regularly seeks such professional development opportunities in order to grow as a pedagogue.
When not on the piano bench, Ms. DiPaolo continues to compose and arrange, and her compositions have been described as "brilliant" (PianoDao), as well as "very effective" with a "fantastic amount of intrigue," "mindfulness...[and] colorful nuance" (Seven Sky Music). Ms. DiPaolo's music has been heard across the world. Along with numerous performances in the Midwest, her commissioned song settings of Muscogee poet laureate Alexander Posey's texts have been performed nationwide, and the Smithsonian Institution procured copies of two of these (Nature's Blessings and A Vision) to archive at the National Museum of the American Indian. Ms. DiPaolo's music also received its Mexican premiere in 2013 with a performance of her Divertimento, written for the International String Quartet of Yucatán. In 2014 Ms. DiPaolo published a set of twenty short pedagogical pieces in uncommon keys, entitled Venturing Beyond, for early-intermediate pianists of all ages, available on SheetMusicPlus and MusicaNeo, and she recently completed Vignettes, a new set of pedagogical pieces that will introduce intermediate pianists to the Impressionist language of Maurice Ravel. While living in Bloomington, Ms. DiPaolo was commissioned to create a choral arrangement of "Ride," the city of Bloomington's official bicentennial song, for the Bloomington Community Song Project. After she relocated to Cleveland, her Divertimento and Lucid Dreaming for solo harp were featured at the "She Scores" new music festival, celebrating women composers with ties to Ohio, held at Case Western Reserve University in June 2022 and rebroadcast on Mark Satola's "Cleveland Ovations" program on WCLV radio (90.3) in October. Most recently, Ms. DiPaolo's Nocturne in G-sharp minor was selected for inclusion in 22 Nocturnes for Chopin, a collection of Chopin-inspired piano compositions and published by EVC Music (dist. Hal Leonard) in fall 2023. Also a sought-after composition teacher and adjudicator, Ms. DiPaolo frequently judges state, regional, and divisional MTNA composition competitions at all levels, ranging from elementary to college-level Young Artists. In her private online studio, she has recently expanded her curricular offerings to include partimento and other historical methods of teaching tonal composition and improvisation. (Click here to find out more about these methods.) An enthusiastic and frequent podcast guest, Ms. DiPaolo has appeared on podcasts with the Nikhil Hogan Show, Motif Music Studios, Ultimate Music Theory, Web Piano Academy, and the Piano Sight Reading Community to discuss her compositions and various piano pedagogy topics.
When not working on one of her many concurrent musical projects, Ms. DiPaolo might be found completing academic editing projects as the owner of Superlative Proofreading and Editing Services, maintaining several music-related social media communities, looking for opportunities to maintain her Spanish and Italian language skills, and raising and releasing monarch butterflies with the MonarchWatch tagging program. Having lived in Detroit, southern Indiana, and Cleveland at various points, she is now based in Nashville, Tennessee, where she resides with her husband Jason and a rotating cast of pet and houseguest butterflies.
To learn more about Ms. DiPaolo’s many and varied performing, teaching, and publishing pursuits, please visit her artist website at ndipaolo.musicaneo.com.
Separate collaborative piano and academic CVs are available upon request.