Excerpt from LEEUWARDER COURANT, December 23, 2015:

Fourteen-year-old Welmoed Poelstra was taught to make choices in her interpretation. Eline van der Veer (17), had to tackle her own fear and Léon van der Boom (18) was given a lesson in the ‘upgrading of Brahms’.

In Marietta Petkova’s supporting programme that preceded her own concert, she took three piano crackers in hand in front of a breathless audience.

“No, you are not playing a scale but a spread out chord.” Also: “According to me your thumb needs awakening”. “Try to regard indications in sheet music as suggestions rather than obligations”. Or: “With a crescendo you make a passage broader, more orchestral, not necessarily louder”. Afterwards the pianist sounded somewhat surprised and said: “It’s fantastic how they soak up all the information”. “They immediately apply what they have discovered”.