Talent has Hunger

Saw this film last night. http://www.boston.com/event/film-talent-has-hunger-5642482 and https://www.facebook.com/talenthashunger about Paul Katz, who teaches cello at New England Conservatory.

While various aspects of his pedagogy were fascinating, the most interesting aspect of the film for me was the varied outcomes for his students, who are all fairly recent grads and are finding their way in the contemporary music world.

Katz and two students (one a member of the Parker Quartet, one a teacher herself) were present for questions. They mentioned that they had wanted to discuss social responsibility in the film and also wanted some “new music” included, but overall the film really covered the ground they had envisioned.

I commented to Katz on the way in which he gives his students time to mature and come to true commitment on their own terms. I thought this was a great model for parents of talented students of music.

This film is traveling around so watch for it. Eventually I am sure it will be available as a DVD.

oh and Paul Katz has a website entitled cellobello with all kinds of resources http://cellobello.com/

We saw this movie last night and appreciated it very much. It highlighted hard work, as needing to be combined with talent and the various artistic needs of different students. If I may offer an extension to cello playing and music school resources, I liked a YouTube channel, emilyplayscello, for a few videos that are a student’s point of view of the learning process -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFH81SLmgmw&list=PLfNJoiS6WzDTwEXj5t35L4GW_8Edph1PB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVjpzpwYGSU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJwvBiiMiqg

BTW, we got the movie from iTunes.