BartK In the short term I'm not sure what we are going to do. We can continue on ABF but now Gombessa will not be able to participate. What shall I do about the voting for themed recitals 2025? I was supposed to make a poll thread tomorrow.
I don't envy you your decision, Bart. It's a tough situation to be in! You have my back too, whatever that is worth 
(yeah I know, that's like someone from the peanut gallery whistling at the performers on stage) 
BartK I am going to carry on with the recitals at Piano World as long as l can and as long as there is interest. So, yes, go ahead with the poll. The themed Recitals and ABF quarterly recitals will continue at Piano World.
Which is not to say that we can't also do recitals over here. I corresponded with Navindra about it several days ago. My idea was that if it is possible to schedule a time for a post to go public, then we could announce the recital and start a thread for it with instructions in the first post and the deadline for everyone to use. The performers each make a post with their recording and comments, scheduled to go live at the deadline. Then we can have the feel of an online recital, with lots of things to listen to and comment on. And there is considerably less for a recital admin to do.
As far as uploading and storing recordings, I don't think that is necessary. It is something we did at PianoWorld to avoid dead links - the recordings now take about 47 Gig for 18 years of recitals! Treat the recital like a live one, and have the performers pledge to keep their recordings live for a month, after that, it is history.
As far as Gombessa participating in the recital - anyone can participate - you don't need an account at PW. But unless you have an account, you cannot comment.
I like the idea of recitals, as opposed to posting to the Member Recordings section ad hoc. I think it helps with participation, both in making a submission and taking the time to listen to the other participants. Of course, people should post to Member Recordings whenever they want! But I know that I, for one, probably would not do so. In part because if there’s no deadline, I’ll make a better performance some other time! (And ‘some other tine’ most likely will never come to pass).
Also, with this new format, I think we can have this less tied to an Adult Beginners thing. While I know that most participants were not beginners, since the switcheroo, I’ve communicated with someone who never really looked at the ABF because she wasn’t a beginner. But I think she’d probably be game to participate in an e-cital.
Bumping this thread with the latest discussion from the other thread.
I believe the ABF (or Learners Lounge) is not the best place to host the recitals because the more advanced pianists may be hesitant to participate. A few people agree with me, a few disagree. What I noticed is that those who agree tend to be the more advanced pianists/learners.
Edit: oops didn't see Pallas' post.
Pallas What's inclusive about dividing by skill level or experience? And who is going to enforce it? What I always say at the PW recitals is that there are no recital police - it is up to the performer to decide if their piece fits any theme we might have. But if you divide by level or experience it becomes too difficult - and exclusive, not inclusive.
I prefer if everyone can join the same recital, pianists and adult learners. If the recitals are going to move to this forum one day I think the members recordings area is the best option.
Pallas why not make a forum of its own: PianoTell Recitals, right on the Home page
Personally I like this idea. Remember that on PW there is a recital database - you can always go back and review old performances. I don't think we'll have that here since we aren't uploading to a DB. If we have a special forum for it, at least it's all in one place so you can go back and look at old recitals later (although I understand that not all of the performances will be available forever).
Pallas I agree with Sam. Once you start breaking it down by ‘levels,’ then you do start being exclusionary, and it seems to be the consensus that we want to encourage as much participation as possible. I think the other issue is simply a numbers one. The ABF recitals get a reasonable number of submissions, but my guess would be that participation here is still going to be a little shy of what we’ve been seeing at ABF. Then if you start breaking it down more, I think you might end up with recitals where only a handful of people participate. If this thing takes off and there are an overwhelming number of submissions, then maybe we could reconsider things, but I suspect that’s not going to be a problem.
As to where the recitals should be, I think a dedicated ‘forum’ would be reasonable. There are sometimes long lapses between the recitals where recital-related threads don’t see much activity, but I don’t think this is a problem, and a dedicated forum has the advantage of archiving things in a way that’s more straightforward than if the recitals are in a non-dedicated place. Alternatively, I think Member Recordings is a reasonable spot for them. I’m not opposed to the Learners Lounge, either, but it seems that there’s still some sense that this will dissuade some from participating.
In my earlier post within this thread I suggested that Member Recordings would be the appropriate place for recitals. Equally appropriate would be a dedicated Recitals forum provided that the architect of PT does not take the view that it makes the home page too cluttered. For consistency of appearance and content, personally, I would keep recitals out of any other PT forum.
I agree that an individual recital should not be level specific. Come one, come all!
As to whether it should go in the Member's Recording subforum or get its own subforum, I don't have a strong opinion and am happy to leave it to @navindra to decide.
Either way, I envision people posting announcements in the various subfora inviting people to hop over to the recital to listen once it's up. And then it's easy to go back and listen etc. So a distinct forum for that makes sense to me.
As @Sam rightfully pointed out in various discussions, this is not the PW forum. The PW recitals are fine and belong in PW. The discussion about them belongs to PW as well.
Which means that now that we have this shiny new PT forum, all options are still open. I absolutely loved the recitals in PW, but I don't necessarily think that we should copy that exact format to this forum here. I don't have any answers or ideas, but I think it might be wise to keep an open mind on possibilities and not get too hung up on what goes on in there.
Although I personally prefer this forum, I also think it's important not to take away from that forum by copy catting their recital format. Just some thoughts As I said, I don't have any answers or specific ideas!
thepianoplayer416 We don't want someone playing an early Mozart Minuet to be next to someone playing Liszt "La Campanella" because the latter piece is much more advance.
(quoted from the other thread; let's continue the discussion here as agreed upon recently)
Well this is yet another reason why I created that thread, essentially asking if everybody was really ok with having advanced learners participate in the ABF recitals. But then somebody seemed offended by the question, basically asking me how I could even think that advanced pianists would feel uncomfortable participating in those recitals. I know I would feel uncomfortable submitting La Campanella in a recital where another pianist would submit an early Mozart minuet or Mary had a Little Lamb, but maybe that's just me.
Josephine It seems the discomfort would be more on the advanced pianist's side. No matter how often people say "sure, don't hesitate to participate", I would still feel uncomfortable submitting a humongous flashy piece next to participants who submitted their very first recording of the first piece they ever learned. I would feel like a show-off. Maybe it's unreasonable of me to feel that way. Irrational even. Can't help it.
Aren't most recitals structured such that Mary Had a Little Lamb and easier pieces are played in the beginning, and more advanced repertoire played at the end? Why make a big deal out of nothing? Play what you want to play!
