Abstract
The concept of «piano school» is quite common and is often used in various musicological and musical pedagogical studies. However, its interpretation seems to be relatively vague, ambiguous, and is often used alongside concepts such as «culture», «art», «tradition». The variety of definitions of the term «school» itself is associated with many aspects, for example, historical, pedagogical, cultural. Thus, a school can be considered as a set of pedagogical methods, performance styles, and repertoire features that are passed down from generation to generation. It can be considered as a geographical phenomenon that reflects the specifics of school development in a particular region, etc. At the same time, the piano school, unlike the concepts of piano culture, piano tradition, and piano art, has certain features that make it necessary to systematize existing interpretations and identify criteria that make it possible to clearly define what exactly is meant by piano school in various contexts. In our study, we turned to studies examining the characteristics of a school from different fields of knowledge, as well as to the academic discipline «History of Performing Arts» for pianists from different educational institutions, on the basis of which we attempted to systematize the criteria of a piano school.