Celebrating Our Return to In-Person Programming!
2025 Festival Participant group photo with teaching artists.
August 2025 marked the return of the in-person Festival for Creative Pianists program, bringing together teaching artists and festival teaching artists from around North America, along with many community members in Montpelier, Vermont. Pianists of all ages from 10 states in the US and Canada gathered to share their love of creativity at the piano. Over the course of 5 days, piano teachers, students, and enthusiasts engaged in workshops, concerts, presentations, and masterclass-style group coaching focused on creative elements of musicality, performance, composition, and artistry.
Our 2025 program book shows the immense amount of learning and engagement opportunities that we packed into 5 days!
Day one on Wednesday, August 6th featuring and opening sessions to help everyone orient to the festival events, an amazing workshop with teaching artist Brendan Jacklin on Extended Techniques at the Piano, a brown bag lunch outdoor concert for the community featuring Brendan Jacklin, time to explore Montpelier, a opening evening group dinner, and finally a participatory jazz jam session with the Ira Friedman Trio.
Day two on Thursday, August 7th kicked off with discussions around creativity and motivation at the piano, a workshop called Telling a Story through Music with Ayumi Okada, the start of a 3-day intensive on improvisation in classical styles, performances by festival participants with masterclass-style group coaching, an amazing presentation called “Pianists Guide to the Universe” by Martha Hill and Martin Duncan with visuals and live performance, and a movie night to complete the day.
On day three on Friday, August 8th, the opening session included a group discussion on a creativity formula, followed by an engaging and participatory toy piano demonstration with our Pianist in Residence, Daniel Inamorato. Participants continued in their journey of improvisation in classical music styles with Brendan Jacklin, along with more festival participant performances and masterclass-style group coaching. This evening ended with a performance by the jazz group Tom Cleary and Friends. Oh, and a very important Vermont creemee run was vital in the afternoon!
Day four on Saturday, August 9th was a special day indeed. The day began with refining our creativity formula in an opening session, followed by a workshop with Wynn-Anne Rossi on the Levels and Limitations in Improvisation/Composition. This day was also reserved for adult learning to perform for the panel of teaching artists for individualized feedback. In the afternoon, festival participants performed in a “Best Of” recital to share their work, with a celebratory pizza party dinner after the recital. Each festival participant received an individually-tailored award to highlight their unique creative skills, interests, and strengths. All the teaching artists also stepped in at the last minute to perform a piece during the recital! In the evening, Daniel Inamorato performed a headline concert featuring new/21st Century works from the Abundant Silence catalog, and other works by living composers. Three of the composers were in attendance, helping make this a truly special event!
The final day on Sunday, August 10th was a bittersweet day of goodbyes at Capitol Grounds coffee shop in Montpelier, and a final community concert with Daniel Inamorato that featured toy piano microludes performed in honor of the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
The Festival for Creative Pianists in-person program will be returning to Montpelier, VT on August 5th - 9th, 2026 - start making your plans and enroll today to save your spot! Scholarships will be available to help everyone be able to engage in this unique learning creative opportunity. This festival is designed to be a creative and affirming experience that helps motivate lifelong learning at the piano, encourages creative thinking and skill-building, and helps pianists develop their artistic voices and jumpstart their next creative projects. Pianists of all ages and levels are welcome (2-3 years of study in advance encouraged).