My Experience at Chetham's Piano Summer School

In August 2023, I went to my first ever Chetham’s International Piano Summer School. I am tragically musically illiterate but had a 10-year-old son obsessed with Mozart and Beethoven and not completely shabby at playing the piano, so we decided we’d give the summer school a go. I admit I was slightly under sufferance here. Being tragically musically illiterate meant my main role in my son’s piano education was to sit on the sofa while he played and occasionally look up and say, ‘That’s brilliant, darling,’ grateful his interests didn’t require me to stand on the edge of a football pitch cutting up oranges on a Sunday morning. 

We arrived to an atmosphere of excited anticipation. The reception was filled with people – adults, children and faculty – checking in for their five-day stint at this world-renowned music school, all of them brought here by one thing: a lifelong love of the piano. It was impossible not to be at least slightly infected by this and later, as Sam and I walked the corridors in search of his practice room, we could hear the sounds of others practising all around us, and I suddenly had the sense that I’d come to something rare and very special.

Sam’s lessons started the next day. His piano teacher was lovely: kind, patient and genuinely interested in bringing him on while he was here. She gave him a piece to play that at first felt beyond him, but by the end of the week, he’d pretty much mastered it. He also had theory lessons with Paul Harris. I sat in the first class, expecting it to make as much sense to me as Mandarin. About thirty seconds in, I realised I was watching the most natural and gifted teacher I had ever seen. (I've spent my life in education, so I don’t say this lightly). Paul talked to Sam as if he were 15 rather than 10, didn’t simplify anything, and yet everything he said made absolute sense, and even I understood it. 

By the end of the first day, I was as excited to be at this summer school as my son was. I had trouble convincing Sam to sit through the concerts with me, so every lunchtime, I abandoned him in our room with a can of Fanta and a (small) tube of Pringles and took myself to the Stoller Hall to watch performances by incredible young pianists. I came away in awe of the talent I’d just been allowed to witness. 

This feeling of awe continued for the whole week. Sam was having a great time. He loved his lessons, made new friends and I could see his love of the piano increasing. I was also having a great time, something I hadn’t expected when I stepped off the train on that first day. I don’t think anyone – even a musical illiterate like me - could be in environment of the summer school and not come away inspired. I'd spent a week surrounded by brilliant, talented people, many of whom had dedicated their lives to the piano, and it was one of the privileges of my life.