‘Rethinking Piano Performance’

Pianists routinely encounter a great variety of bodily and intellectual demands in preparing piano works for performance, but, even to this day, piano pedagogy and piano performance continue to labour under the inheritance of that part of Western philosophy which separates the performer’s mind – and its ability to reason – from the body.

Thus, on March 15th 2026, the 4th symposium at the Royal College of Music will seek to supplant this nineteenth-century approach to teaching and playing, and introduce instead, a transformational way of thinking, the objective of which, is to show that while the performer’s mind is self-evidently the site of mental phenomena, it is also fully embodied.

To this end, we wish to encourage pedagogues and performers at the conservatoires and music departments of universities, musical institutes of higher education; the private piano-teaching fraternity; enquiring piano-students; and those in the wider world who make up our audiences and who have a passion for listening and would like to learn more.

And last, but not least, we welcome those from the medical, and scientific communities, whose research – for example – uses brain-mapping technological tools such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and, more recently still, Magnetoencephalography (MEG), which overturn the concept of the mind/body duality.

What you may expect to find at our 4th symposium

This is an opportunity to experience the company of pianists, pedagogues, and researchers from around the world. Not only will they provide great insights into piano performance, and it’s future, but there will be laughter, good food, and beautiful music — all carefully curated into a single-track series of presentations on all aspects of piano performance.

The London International Piano Symposium (LIPS) is charitable organization (for tax purposes) committed to providing a platform which enables world-leading research at the interface between science, medicine and the art of piano performance. Charity Reference No: EW29056.

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