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This essay uses existential ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre to provide a philosophy of college piano performance teaching which includes awareness of freedom, abandonment and responsibility as a prerequisite for student-teacher interaction. To set the stage for the interaction the study uses Sartre's philosophy, illustrated with concrete examples from the world of piano teaching and performing, to describe what it means to be human. The author applies Sartre's writings about literature to support the idea of an engaged performance, relating it to existential psychoanalysis, making the performer and audience member realize freedom through choice, while addressing ideas of abandonment and performance anxiety. Sartre's philosophy is used to identify the roles both teachers and students play in the college environment as people and as performers. The study with the help of existentialism, describes the interaction between the different elements: teacher, student, performer, and human being, and provides a better understanding of the complexity of the pupil/professor relationship in the college piano performance program.

The first three recitals included one recital of chamber music and two recitals of solo piano music. The first recital consisted of music for clarinet and piano, performed with Dr. Lee Gibson of the music faculty of North Texas State University. This program included the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, Five Atonal Pieces by William Latham, Sonata in F minor by Johannes Brahms, and Four Pieces for clarinet and piano by Alban Berg. The second recital contained the D minor Concerto of Marcello, transcribed by J. S. Sach, Sonata No. 1 by Karl Haria von Weber, Sposalizio by Franz Liszt, Sonata in F by Nels Harveland, and Three Fantasies from Opus 116 by Johannes Brahms. The third recital consisted of the F minor Fantasy by Mozart, Variations on a Theme of Rameau by Paul Dukas, Sechs Kleine Klavierstucke by Arnold Schoenberg and Four Preludes by Sergei Rachraaninov. The fourth recital featured a comparison of selected Liszt and Schumann piano transcriptions of Paganini Viol in Caprices. Musical examples comparing the Paganini Caprices and the transcriptions by Liszt and Schumann, in addition to examples comparing the similarities and differences between the transcriptions of Liszt and Schumann, were interspersed throughout the lecture.