March 7th, 2020 marked the 25th annual Rose Petroff Foundation Piano Competition. I sincerely thank all the students, parents, and especially the teachers, who have made this possible. Hopefully there will be twenty-five more years.
The format for the competition will be the same as in the past. Each student should present one composition of mine as well as a contrasting piece from any era. Ragtime or Jazz by an accomplished jazz composer is acceptable as a contrasting composition. The piece must be published.
The easiest place to get my music is at Amazon.com. There are currently five folios available. Each is about 120 pages and costs $12.95. “Sampler” includes a collection of commonly performed work ranging from early the intermediate to the very advanced level. “Book One” includes pieces for the beginning student (“More than Slightly Weird” to the very early intermediate student, “Second Grade.” “Book Two” is for the intermediate student. “Book Three” also includes pieces for the early to late intermediate student while “Book Four” contains the “Studies” and “Etudes” and is for the more advanced student.
In addition, there are now more than 20 folios available at J.W. Pepper (formerly RBC MUSIC) for the primary and secondary level competitions. The pieces range in difficulty from More Than Slightly Weird for the beginning piano student to For the Accomplished Pianist, For the Virtuoso, Primary Colors, and Selected Advanced Concertworks for the highly skilled students. There are several intermediate folios including Sights and Sounds, The Gospel Etudes, Odds and Ends, My Second Grade, Four Sketches, Six Songs for Piano, Solitude-Multitude, Complete Etudes, book 1 and 2, Three Preludes, and The Street of Eternal Happiness. All in all, there are more than 150 pieces to choose from. Still other pieces are available at ScoreExchange.com. To find the scores, search on Petroff, then Peter. Believe it or not there are three Petroff composers!
Very highly motivated students may want to try a movement from one of the Sonatas. Sonatas 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 17 and 18 are available in “Selected Sonatas” available at Amazon.com.
Please visit our website: RPFTX.ORG for more information about the competitions. The website lists all the music that is available. In addition, the Foundation is now available on Facebook as well: facebook.com/rosepetrofffoundation or through my Facebook Account.
If you are aware of other piano instructors who would be interested in sending students to the competition please let me know so that I could get in touch with them.