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Kim & Kim Piano Retreat: A Transformative Experience

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2025 Piano Retreat [Photo: Kim & Kim Piano Academy]

2025 Piano Retreat [Photo: Kim & Kim Piano Academy]

Why I chose this Piano Retreat

I began learning piano at age 63. The first few years went well, but like so many adult learners I plateaued.  To counter this I took evening classes in piano at Juilliard. They were helpful, but I continued to struggle with accuracy and performance anxiety.

in 2023 I experienced an on-stage disaster at Blue Gallery in New York. I was performing a prelude that I had played at Carnegie Weill some years before. This time I couldn’t recover from an error. The experience shook me. I wondered if I was just getting too old.

Then I read pianist Jeeyoon Kim‘s book Whenever You’re Ready: How to Compose the Life of Your Dreams. Beautifully designed and full of wisdom for adult amateur pianists, it gave me hope.

This led me to the Kim & Kim Piano Academy, created by pianist Jeeyoon Kim and conductor/violinist/pianist Anthony Do-Hoon Kim. I took their online course How to Practice Piano 101. I enjoyed it, but felt that it would have been better to attend in person.

So when the Kim & Kim Piano Retreat for Adult Amateur Pianists was announced, I signed up promptly. The venue was the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA. It looked perfect, lovely inside and out. We rented a house close by, just a few minutes’ walk from Butterfly Beach in Montecito.

What the Retreat Offered

The 4-day retreat was centered around student performances, providing multiple opportunities to be coached and to learn by observation.

Masterclasses

Each student brought personal repertoire to work on throughout the retreat. Masterclasses allowed us to perform in front of each other and receive professional guidance from Jeeyoon and Anthony.

Private Lessons

We also received one-on-one lessons with both Jeeyoon and Anthony. Another teacher, Natasha, coached our assigned duets. This mix of solo and collaborative performance provided enough variety that we had lots of fun and never felt overworked.

Roundtables and Workshops

There were Roundtables where we discussed topics such as how to adjust to the uniqueness of an individual piano, and Piano Workshops where we considered interpretational and technical skills.

Anthony and Jeeyoon

Final Concert

The retreat culminated in a public recital in Lehmann Hall on a fine Hamburg Steinway. Students got to perform what they had been working on. The event was recorded and is being edited by Kim & Kim for distribution to students.

Practice Environment

Classes were interspersed with practice time in private rooms away from the main teaching area, so that students could harden new skills and work on their repertoire. All pianos were Steinway grands, in good condition and IN TUNE.

Welcome dinner in the courtyard

Welcome dinner by Kim & Kim

Community and Daily Life

After the initial welcome dinner, meals were not provided. However we ate together most of the time. Jeeyoon would coordinate lunch deliveries, and in the evening we would head into town for dinner.

To their credit, Jeeyoon and Anthony were with us all day, from the first class to the end of dinner. Their dedication went beyond the normal teacher-student model, making us feel like one big happy family of musicians.

Coaching That Improved My Playing

Anthony’s style!

Anthony’s Approach

Anthony was my coach for Bach’s Prelude #1 in C Major BWV 846. Being a conductor, what did he do? He CONDUCTED my Bach! Arms outstretched, he sculpted the rise and fall of the dynamics in line with Bach’s harmonic structure. The result may not have been for Bach purists, but on a modern piano it was exhilarating.

Jeeyoon’s Approach

My biggest struggle is recovering after a mistake. This had caused my 2023 performance collapse. During my Beethoven lesson with Jeeyoon, it happened again. I stopped several times, having lost my place in the music.

Unexpectedly, Jeeyoon handed me several handwritten notes. Each contained a recovery point with bar numbers and memory cues. She had me practice jumping to them again and again until they started to stick. Then I went to the practice room and worked them some more.

Jeeyoon has a remarkable ability to pinpoint the root of a performance issue and provide a solution. At the recital, my Beethoven was exactly what I had hoped for. I could not have been more grateful.

Personal Growth

These are the benefits I gained from attending this retreat. I could not have achieved them by myself.

  • My Bach Prelude is now bigger and better
  • I performed Beethoven in public with no breakage
  • I gained practical experience with predesigned recovery points
  • I recovered my on-stage confidence

Who This Retreat is Ideal For

Roving Pianist recommends the Kim & Kim Piano Retreat for Adult Amateur Pianists wholeheartedly for:

  • Adult amateur pianists at any level
  • Late-life beginners (like me)
  • Pianists who want to improve confidence on stage
  • Pianists looking for a supportive group environment
  • Pianists who want to improve their musical interpretation

Would I Attend Again? YES!

The Kim & Kim Piano Retreat was far more than some classes. It was 4 days of musical immersion, personal growth, and connection. The beauty of the campus, the warmth of the community, the expertise of the instructors, and the well-crafted syllabus: everything came together as an unforgettable life experience.

The Piano Retreat Experience

[Video courtesy of Kim & Kim Piano Academy]

 

Hollywood Romance by pianist Yoonie Han

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Hollywood Romance

Hollywood Romance (Universal Music)

Yoonie Han’s new album

Pianist Yoonie Han (yooniehan.com) is an award-winning concert pianist, currently living in Hong Kong. She first caught my attention at a piano recital in New York in April 2019.

I greatly enjoyed Ms. Han’s recital, and took home a signed copy of her Steinway & Sons CD Le Rossignol Eperdu. So when she told me about her new album Hollywood Romance, I couldn’t wait to explore it.

Hollywood Romance (Universal Music, Nov. 2020)

Hollywood Romance consists of 13 tracks of romantic-style classical music used in Hollywood movies. Some tracks are original piano works. Others are piano transcriptions or arrangements.

This is beautiful classical piano, played by an accomplished pianist. The recording quality is excellent, and the performances lush. Here are some tracks that caught my attention.

Rachmaninoff: Andante Cantabile (Paganini Rhapsody var. 18)

This concerto-like work for piano and orchestra is used in various movies, most notably Somewhere In Time (1980). It is one of Rachmaninoff’s most filmic compositions.

Ms. Han’s arrangement is clean and and convincing. Her interpretation is warm, conservatively paced and characteristically luminous. She stretches Rachmaninoff’s crescendos without breaking them, and closes with serene beauty. Here is video from the recording sessions.

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Many pianists play this faster than Gershwin’s molto moderato, but not Ms. Han. Her judicious pacing and restrained crescendos evoke grandeur that I am not used to from Gershwin. The resulting musical experience feels somehow wider and deeper, more movie-like.

Puccini: O Mio Babbino Caro

Before listening to this track, I watched soprano Elisabeth Nefeli sing the aria. That was not a good way to approach this piano arrangement! Ms. Han weaves an elegant tapestry of arpeggios, and Puccini’s soulful melody flows and ebbs under her hands as it should. But Puccini fans waiting to hear heart-wrenching soprano high kicks may be disappointed, because a piano just can’t do that kind of thing.

Schubert/Liszt: Ständchen (Schwanengesang D 957 No 4)

Ms. Han’s liquid touch and Schubert’s flowing melodies work well together. Hear this on YouTube at Liszt: Schwanengesang, S. 560 (after F. Schubert).

Where to get Hollywood Romance (links from the artist)

The album is available as a CD overseas, but not in US markets at this time.

[Roving Pianist writes independent reviews and has no financial stake in sales of this product]

Pianist Tiffany Poon meets Fans in NYC

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Tiffany and Ken in Central Park

Tiffany Poon with Ken Turner in Central Park, NYC

Tiffany Poon on Social Media

Tiffany Poon is an aspiring young classical pianist whose YouTube channel has over 64,000 subscribers at the time of writing.

Tiffany is also active on Instagram as tiffanypianist.

Tiffany’s Mission

While many pianists are active on social media, few define their goals as clearly as Tiffany Poon. On her personal web site she states that her goal is “to inspire all generations, the old and the new, to appreciate classical music using social media”.

What Fans Want

In another social forum, Tiffany Poon told her supporters that she wants “to break the boundaries and take you with me inside the world of a classical pianist“.

This is exactly what fans like myself want from a pianist like Tiffany. For us she is already a star, because she has many formal performances on YouTube and she’s really good. If you heard her play, you would never guess that she is only about 20 years old.

It’s Personal

I have exchanged pleasantries with top rank pianists at CD signings. Some are generous of spirit, but at root it’s impersonal. That’s not to say that Khatia Buniatishvili or Yevgeny Kissin don’t appreciate their fans, but we must all be one big blur to them when they are on tour.

In contrast, an emerging pianist like Tiffany is actively building her fan base. Having studied music at Julliard and now at Yale. she is on track to an elite career. Social media engagement can be a competitive advantage, and she works hard on her vlogs (video blogs) to engage us.

When Ms. Poon made the gutsy decision to meet fans personally in New York, it was not to be missed. Around 25 of us made it to Central Park in the stickiest heat of August to meet her at Bethesda Fountain.

Tiffany’s Vlog

Tiffany Poon’s YouTube channel contains her vlog, filmed and edited by the pianist herself. She also does livestreams. These videos are uniquely Tiffany: well-presented, chatty, unpretentious and informative. She is a natural in front of the camera, talking to us as if we were friends sitting across from her at a coffee table.

Among my favorite vlogs is Mix – Can You Hear the Difference Between Before & After Piano Tuning? | Tiffany Vlogs #21. during which Tiffany and her viewers learn some neat stuff about piano tuning.

We have also been with Tiffany in practice rooms at Julliard, commuting to school in New York, eating out with her parents, in a supermarket, in a dining hall, and even on her one-way road trip from New York to Yale.

Meeting Tiffany

When I found Tiffany in Central Park, she looked as cool and presentable as in her vlogs, despite the humidity. She recognized me instantly (goodie points!) and chatted individually with everyone who came to meet her. We were a diverse group of all ages (but predominantly young) from all over the world, many of whom seemed quite awed to be in her presence.

Tiffany herself was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Neither she nor any of us had thought about what we would do once we got together! There was no piano to fill gaps in conversation, no edit function to cut out awkward moments, no beer to cool us down and loosen us up. This was a real life experience that Tiffany had initiated, a bridge between performer and audience. We hung out with her until thunderclaps chased us out of Central Park.

It was almost sad that nobody at the fountain other than us knew that a leading pianist of the Post-Millenial generation was present that evening. I think again of Tiffany’s ambitious mission and how important it is in this age, when a Chopin Etude on your media device may be referred to as a “song”.