Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Notice Re: Dorothy Taubman

One of my colleagues will be handling this.
Thanks,
Anthony Tommasini
________________________________________
From: Louis Podesta
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 1:43 PM
To: Tommasini, Anthony
Subject: Request For Obituary From Louis Podesta

Tony:

Dorothy Taubman died on Wednesday

As one of the most innovative piano technique teachers of the last 50 years, I think she deserves a formal obituary in the Times.

Thanks.

Louis Podesta

I have a friend who suffered a piano injury, and a teacher that was familiar with Taubman's ideas helped her to recover and practice safely. I hope Dorothy Taubman rests in peace, and I agree with you that it would be good for her legacy to be discussed to be in the Times.

Good job, Louis. While I'm not the biggest admirer of the Taubman approach (but my main problem isn't with her or the method but with the attitude of many adherents), I agree that she deserved such attention. Although......I'm not sure I would have addressed Anthony Tommasini as "Tony."

Let's see.....I had some correspondence with him a couple of years ago. Let's see how he signed his notes....

"Tony Tommasini"

Well, OK.
I still wouldn't address him as Tony. But since he signs "Tony," what the heck....

Or "Tony Tommy".

In Australia we usually use first names. And when the first name is not known, they often use terms like "sweetheart" and "honey" - even with old men!

I guess it's a regional and/or a personal thing, but I would never think of assuming the first name that a person goes by with friends and addressing him/her that way unless I were invited to do so.

Times have, of course, changed. In my younger years in Canada, no one would assume to address an adult unknown to them by their first name, but would always use Miss, Mrs. or Mr. with the last name. Now chummy familiarity is all the thing; everyone is addressed by their first name.

I hear that in some schools, colleges and universities, students address their teachers by their first names. Not only was that never done in "my time" but where I taught we teachers were admonished never to use the first name of a teacher we were talking to if we were within earshot of a student. First names between and among teachers could only be used in private conversations.

First-name familiarity irks some people of my generation and can even lead to awkward situations. Bruce is not my first name, but it is the name I go by by all who know me. Sitting in the waiting room of an office where I may have an appointment and hearing a twenty-something receptionist call out a familiar and shortened (gasp!) form of my first name will fail to rouse me from my reverie since no one who knows me addresses me that way. I initially fail to realise that someone is calling me when that name is used.

Regards,

I'm usually just surprised if they have the pronunciation right. I have one of those names which people misread. There's no real reason why they should, but they do. I've learnt to sigh and tolerate it. As for the little endearments, a 20-something receptionist calling me "dear" really irks me.

In Greece we still call people by their last name, plus Sir, Madame, Mr., Mrs., Ms. etc...

However when moving to England I did realize that everyone was very casual, and switched to calling people by their first name. The Internet has helped a bit. I mean when someone signs 'Andy' and has an undefinite age range (as do I for a lot of people), it's difficult to call him any different. Same goes for me. Very rarely someone will call me Mr. Sideris and then I'll just correct them that I'm quite young and haven't deserved enough fame, fortune, glory and respect to be called that! (I'd rather be called Dr. Sideris, which is how I book flight tickets and it's huge fun! :D)

Hello Aussie bird,

Late in life when visiting the UK for the first time,
my dear old Mater (aged 82 at the time)
took the strongest exception to being addressed as “dear” ...
her Victorian upbringing revolted at the familiarity.

Later (after my 4 year post graduate sojourn in London)
I was able to explain to her that the term “dear” was
merely an ingrained British pleasantry ...
a respectful way of conveying an appreciation of your presence and perhaps saying “can I help you luv?”

It's not so much the familiarity which annoys me - it's the patronising feel of it. A short step from "dear" to "old harmless dear" perhaps. I'm not ready to be harmless yet.

I've had younger professors who, on the first day of class, specifically say to address them by first name and not Dr., Professor, etc. This semester I have a couple of older ones that you don't even consider addressing by their first name, though.

I've had professors do that, and it's been a long time since school days for me. I think they were mostly interested in appearing cooler than the generation that voted for Nixon. Communist hippy tree-huggers.

My issue with saying "Tony" in this instance wasn't the use of the first name, but the use of the nickname/diminutive, which I'd totally never do -- even if the person himself only used it.

Which we know he doesn't, because his bylines say Anthony.

When I corresponded with him -- a few notes back and forth -- I said "Mr. Tommasini" in the first note, then, with considerable thought ....Anthony in the next ones because of how familiarly ("Tony Tommasini") he was signing his notes.

P.S. He's probably thrilled if people just know which letter to double in the last name.

It is like this guys: The man called me personally about a year ago to further discuss running my news story in the New York Times. He said . . . "hello, this is Tony Tommasini from the New York Times."

Prior to that, we had exchanged a few emails.

The bottom line is that I know the man, and therefore, I can address him as Tony.

And, in an interesting side note, he said the major reason the Times could not run my story is that it was too detailed for a newspaper like his. Well, it most certainly has not been "too detailed" for Piano World. And, that is a true compliment to PW.

Further, the Taubman Institute did not issue a press release on her death, and the obituary page notice in the Times was only one paragraph. The reason he was thanking me was that he had not heard of her passing.

I'd say that's a pretty good answer!


I didn't know they did anything at all. I hadn't noticed anything, and after seeing your post I did a search on the Times site and nothing showed up.

IMO a single paragraph could have been sufficient.
Could you copy/paste for us what they did write?

I always figured something went awry between her and onetime protegee Edna Golandsky, and Miss Taubman eventually got eclipsed in the pr game. Clearly she had important things to offer, and helped many an impaired pianist.

As reguested.

"TAUBMAN--Dorothy, died April 3, 2013. Beloved mother of Mark (Lois). Adored grandmother of Janice. Creator of the Taubman Techniques and Founder and Artistic Director of the Taubman Institute. Funeral will be held on Friday, April 5th, 11am at the Gramercy Park Memorial Chapel, 353 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10010."

In my opinion, this is certainly less than what should be said about a lady who dedicated most of her adult life to piano technique pedagogy. I am sure that Dr. Tommasini's colleague will do a superb job.

And, the reason she got "eclipsed" is that she had a stroke about ten years ago which severely curtailed her teaching.

As I said above, there are issues on the subject, but I don't see how that's one of them. Both Taubman herself and her method are hugely renowned, and much more well known than Golandsky -- not to take anything away from Golandsky, about whom I've heard only very good things.


Thanks -- and absolutely.

That's not an "obituary" at all; it's a "paid notice."

You got it, Louis!

And it's written by my friend Vivien Schweitzer (and probably friend of others here) who had such a wonderful entry (here) in last year's Cliburn amateur youtube contest and who recently participated in a workshop with Golandsky.

Great article, she did not deserve anything less, her teaching was amazing and her problem-solving skills were simply out-of-this world! Although I, unfortunately, have never taken lessons with her, I had the chance to watch videos of her lessons and that alone has taken my piano playing to a whole new level, she'll be dearly missed. One thing that did bother me, was the fact that neither the Taubman Institute or Edna Golandsky have come forth with a statement about her passing, I searched in the site, You Tube channel, Blog site, twitter, etc. and not one single word, I think that's unacceptable and inconsiderate, I hope I'm wrong but I couldn't find anything.