Discovering the Hidden Potential with Prof. Marina Horak, 2nd part (Eng.)

(39:00) Prof. Marina Horak‘s holistic approach to teaching music is inovative, fresh and  invigorating. The core of her workshops, seminars and individual lessons is always the same in its fundamental direction.  All of them strive to offer experimental situations and provide a safe space in which participants can get in touch with their feelings, thoughts and sensations, and by means of emotional responses and reactions as well as intuitive imagery gain new insights.

Here are some of the statements from Marina’s colleagues and students, that vividly describe what positive effect her teaching has, not only regarding the final result in the strict pianistic sense, but also regarding her positive influence on the pupil’s personal growth and development as a human being.

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”I have known Marina Horak for a very long time, both as a performer and a pedagogue. Particularly her interpretations of Chopin’s works made every time anew a deep impression on me, and gave the feeling: this is how these works should be played – and no other way. As a pedagogue she is known to me partly through performances of her pupils and partly because of her help as co-mentor at the Hochschule. Hardly anybody is capable of such correct and precise judgement as M. Horak. Her language with its wealth of nuances and her musical knowledge, expert down to the last detail, make her evaluation highly competent.”

Franz Massinger, Professor of Piano, head of piano department, Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, München, Germany

”I have personally attended seminars given by Prof. Marina Horak, and my students have often been participants at her seminars. Her interesting, personal and imaginative methods (scientifically well-founded), and her approach to problems with the achieved results made me enthusiastic. This is a scholarly, thoughtful work, which in a fantastic ways uses methods of relaxation, meditation and concentration at the piano, and does not exist in our parts of the world. I whole-heartedly recommend her work and wish to emphasize the fact that she greatly helped my students.”

Sretna Meštrović, Professor of Piano, Music Academy Zagreb, Croatia

”She showed profound knowledge of the repertoire, extraordinary gifts for sizing up immediately the widely various technical and interpretative problems experienced by students, for knowing how to remedy these problems and for explaining both problem and remedy with the utmost clarity.”

Peter Platt, Professor of Music, head of music department, Sydney University, Australia

”Marina Horak’s teaching approach can be, according to my experiences, be described as unique. She knows how to guide with a vast knowledge and creativity without offering me – or other pupils – prefabricated solutions. With a great capacity of feeling emphaty  and a deep understanding of the psychological links, she succeeds in using for every single situation the appropriate means that are always connected with the music or the student. Numerous “tricks”, profound insights into the musical expression, Marina’s capacity of linking the music, expression, technique and body – all this added to my expertise as a teacher of both very young beginners and professional students, whom I teach with inquisitiveness and interest.  My professional self-confidence, which I acquired as a pedagogue and as a performer, is based on the knowledge and experience shared with me by Marina during my lessons.”

Thierry A. Güdel, Vancouver, Canada
piano pedagogue and concert artist; founder and director of the European Piano Academy Vancouver, Canada

”When as a fifteen years old girl I walked into her magic workshop of life and music, it was immediately clear to me that such work is unique. I began to grasp things that were completely strange to me and yet familiar at the same time. I experienced the beauty of silence, its “sound” – which up to this time was terrifying, alien, yet quotidian. Marina is not a “pedagogue”, as we know them. She is a great friend with a knowing about and a feeling of music in a different way.”

Aleksandra Naumovski, Ljubljana, Slovenia
graduate of the Academy of Music Ljubljana, piano teacher, author of music textbooks and piano methods for children

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Interested in watching the second part of the show? You are kindly invited to do so …