On May 12th, the award ceremony for The Art of Piano Education Awards took place, where my online course Piano Patterns in Harmony was honored as Best Digital Resource of the Year. These awards are a wonderful celebration of two of the most beautiful things in the world: piano (music) and teaching. Being at the Royal Albert Hall, surrounded by so many people I admire, was an incredible experience. So, I wanted to share a bit more about what these awards are, who the winners and nominees were; after all, staying up to date with publications and new pedagogical resources is so important for educators.
The Art of Piano Education Awards
These awards, which celebrate excellence and innovation in piano education and teaching, are organized by Elena Cobb of EVC Music. The jury is chaired by Andrew Eales (Pianodao.com) and is made up of leading piano education specialists in the UK, known for their commitment to music education and repertoire. The panel of experts changes each year; for the 2025 edition, it included Andrew Eales, Penelope Roskell, and Graham Fitch.
This is the second edition of the awards. In 2024, the panel of experts included figures such as Murray McLachlan, Sally Cathcart, and David Barton, and notable educators and composers such as Pam Wedgwood, Paul Harris, and Jakub Metelka were among those awarded.
In the morning, the award ceremony took place in the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall. It was preceded by the Star Prize Festival, where nominees and attendees enjoyed a wonderful concert featuring young pianists from around the world—including Australia, the USA, Colombia, Malta, and the UK—performing alongside a small jazz ensemble. The young pianists had the unique opportunity to play on a red piano that once belonged to Sir Elton John, performing works by David Önaç, Elena Cobb, Sam Wedgwood, Victoria Proudler, among others. Following this beautiful concert, the award ceremony was held, hosted by Andrew Eales.
In the evening, we attended the Winners’ Dinner held in the Prince of Wales Room, also at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a wonderful dinner in a truly beautiful setting. During both the dinner and the awards ceremony, I had the pleasure of speaking with Christopher Norton, Elena Cobb, Melanie Spanswick, Ruth Alberici, Penelope Roskell, Andrew Eales, Bosba Panh, Victoria Proudler, and many other incredible people. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to meet and talk with people I admire and with whom I share so many interests and passions.
Categories of the Awards
This year, there were seven different categories:
- Printed Classical Sheet Music
- Printed Contemporary Sheet Music
- Printed Method Books & Series
- Digital Resources
- The Founder’s Award
- The President’s Award
- The Lifetime Achievement Award
Categories 1-4: nominated by publishers / digital creators.
The winners decided by the panel of experts.
Category 5: awarded at the Founder’s discretion.
Category 6: awarded at the President’s discretion.
Category 7: nominated by the event organisers; decided in consultation with the panel of experts.
Printed Classical Sheet Music
The sponsor of this award was Presto Music, and these are the nominated works:
PUBLISHER – COMPOSER – TITLE
1. Bärenreiter Praha – Bedřich Smetana – Easy Piano Pieces and Dances
2. Bärenreiter-Verlag – Fanny Hensel – Ostersonate (Easter Sonata)
3. Edition Peters – Agathe Backer Grøndahl – Fantasy Pieces Op. 39 and In the Blue Mountain Op. 44
4. G. Henle Verlag – Various, Jingxian Xie, Editor – Chinese Piano Music, Works of the 20th Century
5. Schott Music – Handel | Ohmen (Editor) – My First Handel
And the award went to…
Fantasy Pieces Op. 39 and In the Blue Mountain Op. 44 by Agathe Backer Grøndahl, published by Peters.
Agathe Backer Grøndahl was a prominent Norwegian pianist, praised by George Bernard Shaw as one of the greatest virtuosos of the 19th century. Hearing problems that eventually led to deafness forced her to abandon her career as a concert pianist. Although she attempted to resume it with the support of Edvard Grieg, she ultimately devoted herself fully to composition and teaching. Despite her talent, her work has largely gone unnoticed (I only discovered her recently, thanks to these awards.), so this recognition is an excellent opportunity to highlight her legacy. The Fantasy Pieces, Op. 39, are among her best-known compositions, featuring an original sound language with impressionistic touches. This Urtext edition—the first of its kind—has been prepared by Christian Grøvlen based on the original manuscript and the first edition from 1898, which had been out of print for years. You can find more information about this book on pianodao.com. Below, I share a performance of In the Boat, from her Op. 39.
Printed Contemporary Sheet Music
This award was sponsored by Pianodao, and the nominees were as follows:
PUBLISHER – COMPOSER – TITLE
1. Adrian Lord – Adrian Lord – Elements
2. Willis Music – Eric Baumgartner – Favorite Melodies for Jazz Piano Solo
3. Faber Music – Pam Wedgwood – Piano Dreaming
4. Schott Music – Melanie Spanswick – Ghostly Piano Tales
5. Hal Leonard – Various – Contemporary Piano Masters
And the award went to…
Ghostly Piano Tales by Melanie Spanswick, published by Schott Music.
Melanie Spanswick is a distinguished music educator, writer, composer, and piano teacher, who has received multiple awards. She has over 30 published titles and is a highly respected voice in the field of music pedagogy. She regularly participates as a keynote speaker, trainer, and presenter at international events. You can find all her work on her website, but I wanted to highlight here, besides her award-winning work, her books No Words Necessary, Piano Waves, and her Snapchats collections for 4 and 6 hands, as well as her anthologies like Women Composers, a compilation of compositions written by women throughout history, selected and graded across three books.
Ghostly Piano Tales features 24 pieces for solo piano, ranging from easy to intermediate level, perfect for beginner students and their first public performances.
Each piece tells a story wrapped in mystery, inspired by ghosts, ancient legends, and supernatural phenomena from different cultures around the world. The collection also includes performance notes that encourage exploring unconventional techniques. You can find more information about this book on pianodao.com. I’m sharing the following video of one of the pieces from the book, Woman in White:
Printed Method Books & Series
Sponsored by EVC Music, and the nominees were:
PUBLISHER – COMPOSER – TITLE
1. Hal Leonard – Ben Andrew – The Piano Scale Book – Initial to Grade 3
2. Faber Music – Varios – The Piano Player Series: Classical Piano Pieces & Classical Chillout
3. ABRSM – Varios – Piano Syllabus 2025/2026
4. OUP – Varios – Piano Time 1, 2 and 3, Third Editions
5. Schott Music – Varios – Musiques d’enfants, Dances and Character Pieces, Adventures on the High Seas, Album des enfants
And the award went to…
Piano Syllabus 2025/2026 by ABRSM
Every two years, the ABRSM (The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) publishes its books containing the pieces included in their exams. These books are organized by level, from Initial to Grade 8, and each book contains 9 pieces. These publications are very useful whether you take the exams or not, as they always offer a carefully curated selection of pieces in various styles that continually introduce me to new and refreshing pedagogical repertoire.
Digital Resources
This award was sponsored by Australian Glass, and here is the list of nominees:
WEBSITE – AUTHOR – TITLE
1. TopMusic.co Selena Pistoresi Unfazed: Teaching Neurodivergent Students
2. MyMusicResource.com Alberici & Brooke Piano Chords Workbook: All Major and Minor Keys
3. megustaelpiano.com Juan Cabeza Piano Patterns in Harmony
4. PianoCreativity.com Garreth Brooke Piano Creativity
5. 88 Piano Keys Leila Viss Jumpstarts
And the winner was…
Piano Patterns in Harmony by Juan Cabeza.
I still can’t believe it, but yes, I received this award. Since, if you’re reading this post, I imagine you already know me, I won’t talk much about myself or my course. I just wanted to say that Piano Patterns in Harmony is an online course where you’ll learn to improvise using patterns from different composers to create your own music.
Since this post is quite long, I haven’t been able to talk about all the nominated works. But I did want to highlight the nominees in this category. Being on this list alongside professionals I admire, like Garreth Brooke, Ruth Alberici, Leila Viss, and Selena Pistoresi, fills me with pride. I was also lucky enough to meet Ruth and Garreth, sit with them during the ceremony, and spend a wonderful day together.
In the course Unfazed: Teaching Neurodivergent Students, specialist Selena Pistoresi offers practical tools for teaching neurodivergent students: how to identify their needs from the very first meeting, plan clearly, and calmly handle any challenges in class. It contains 20 lessons and can be found on the fantastic website of Tim Topham, TopMusic.co.
Piano Chords Workbook by Ruth Alberici and Garreth Brooke is a very useful workbook for practicing chords and scale degrees in every key with students. Once you understand these chords, everything becomes easier: learning new pieces, improvising, composing, analyzing… This workbook is designed to be used directly at the piano and is especially helpful for visual learners, thanks to its clear and organized layout. Ruth Alberici is also, among many other things, the director and founder of MyMusicResource, a website with countless resources.
Garreth Brooke is also the creator of another nominated work, the website PianoCreativity.com, where he shares a wealth of ideas for teaching piano in a more creative way. His blog is for piano teachers who want to improvise and compose with their students but don’t know where to start. It’s also incredibly useful for teachers like me, who already improvise with their students but are always looking for new ideas to enrich our lessons. It’s a real gem of a website.
Jumpstarts by Leila Viss is a collection of 12 creative resources covering various themes that explore improvisation, composition, playing by ear, and reading from lead sheets. Jumpstarts is part of her course Space To Create. On her website, 88pianokeys, you can find a wealth of interesting resources.
The Founder’s Award
This category, awarded at the Founder’s discretion Elena Cobb, went to the book Favorite Melodies for Jazz Piano Solo by Eric Baumgartner, published by Willis Music. Eric Baumgartner is a composer with countless published pieces and arrangements, and he has also written a method book, Jazz Piano Basics, in two volumes.
The award-winning book contains 17 jazz standards arranged for upper-intermediate pianists, roughly between Grades 5 and 7 of the British ABRSM system. You can find more information about this book on pianodao.com. In the following video, we can see the author performing one of the arrangements included in the book, What’ll I Do:
The President’s Award
This category, awarded at the President’s discretion Andrew Eales, went to Chinese Piano Music Works of the 20th Century, published by Henle Verlag. It is a collection of selected pieces edited by pianist Jingxian (Jane) Xie.
This edition brings together works by Chinese composers from the second half of the 20th century, ideal for upper-intermediate to advanced pianists. Many of the pieces—often performed as encores in major concert halls—combine pianistic virtuosity with the melodic richness of Chinese folk music, reflecting both Eastern and Western influences. Xie also provides fingerings and a contextual introduction that invites readers to explore this fascinating, yet still little-known repertoire in Europe. You can find more information about this book on pianodao.com.
The following video features the opening piece of this beautiful collection, Flower Drum, performed by Yuelin Zhong.
The Lifetime Achievement Award
This award, which recognizes a lifetime dedicated to the profession, was nominated by the event organisers; decided in consultation with the panel of experts. And it went to Christopher Norton. I doubt there’s a single reader of this blog who doesn’t know this famous British pianist and composer, originally from New Zealand. During the awards ceremony, we had the pleasure of hearing him perform a selection of his most iconic works, accompanied by a rhythm section. At the gala dinner, I had the opportunity to meet him and his wife — they were absolutely lovely.
From his prolific body of work, I’d like to highlight the Microjazz series, which includes a wide range of pieces at various levels — such as A Day Like Today, featured in Microjazz Collection 4 and performed here by the composer himself:
He has also published several books of preludes in different styles, including Rock Preludes, Jazz Preludes, and Latin Preludes, among others. The following example is the piece Pop Bossa from his Latin Preludes book:
To wrap up the post, I’d like to share a photo of the organizers, the panel of experts, the nominees along with other important attendees of the ceremony.
Thank you to the organizers of this very special and much-needed event, and thank you for reading this long post all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed it!
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