BACKGROUND

Background

Cristine MacKie, pianist and musicologist taught piano performance; coached chamber groups at Royal Holloway, University of London for thirty years; designed courses at Morley College, London, to prepare latecomers- in all aspects of music for the world of performance; given recitals and broadcast on both radio and television in the UK, Austria and beyond, as well as giving concerts and master classes throughout the West Indies sponsored by the British Council.

She has given illustrated lectures in 2009 at the Royal College of Music, and the ‘Year of the Piano’ lecture series hosted by Royal Holloway, University of London in association with Steinway & Sons, UK Ltd. She founded also the Association ‘L’Art du Piano’ in Southwest France, and in 2013 founded and directs the London International Piano Symposium, which is hosted every two to three years at the Royal College of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music; its objective  being to provide a an educational platform with the aim of expanding the frontiers of knowledge by encouraging an interdisciplinary approach to piano performance at the interface between scientific research, and skilled artistry.

Over-Arching Objective

However, Cristine’s over-arching objective is to be found in her life-long work, which advocates an ‘embodied’ approach to piano teaching and performing.  This is acknowledged by the magazine the Music Teacher (April 2014) who describes Cristine as the UK’s ‘leading advocate of the mind/ body approach’.  Her invaluable contribution on this neglected issue of ‘embodiment’ is unprecedented, and is reflected in burgeoning research, establishing of organizations, and publishing of books and academic papers all of which have laid the foundation for a clearer understanding of what piano performance and its practice thereof, entails. As a result, two books have been published, compiled, and edited by Cristine: New Thoughts on Piano Performance: Research at the Interface Between Science and the Art of Piano Performance (2021), 2nd ed. www.londoninternationalpianosymposium.co.uk; and Rethinking Piano Performance: The Embodied Mind (2022), 2nd ed. both available at www.londoninternationalpianosymposium.co.uk. Cristine has contributed also numerous theoretical papers on these topics, which are published in the Proceedings of the International Symposium on Performance Science between 2007-2023 (see publications page).