Active Member Biographies

is a versatile pianist equally at home in chamber music or solo performance both on modern, as well as historical instruments. He resided for ten years in Switzerland performing both as soloist and collaborative artist throughout Switzerland and Germany and toured in Australia and Europe as a member of the Swiss Chamber Soloists. His recording of Schumann’s Piano Quartet and Quintet won the coveted Prix d’Or prize for outstanding chamber music recording. His most recent recording is a two-CD set of solo and chamber music by 20th-century composer Dmitri Shostakovitch. Dr. Abbott has served on the faculties of the Zürich and Schaffausen Conservatories of Music (Switzerland), and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (USA). He has directed summer courses in both piano and chamber music in Europe as well as in the United States for over 30 years. He regularly appears in recitals at many college campuses and music festivals across the country and often serves as an adjudicator including serving on the jury for the final round of the MTNA national high school and collegiate piano competition. He was awarded a Bronze medal and two special prizes at the 1980 International Music Competition in Geneva. Dr. Abbott recently completed a sabbatical project researching and performing the solo piano and chamber music of Johannes Brahms throughout the Eastern United States. He has been a member of the faculty of Albion College, Albion, Michigan, since 2005 where he serves as Professor of Piano, Chamber Music, and Music History.

is a pianist, composer, curator, and filmmaker with live tours reaching four continents and 24 countries, 30+ million music video views, daily radio plays, and over a thousand performances of his compositions every year. His artistic endeavors have appeared on screens big and small (documentaries and movies, PBS and MTV, Oprah and Will & Grace) and have inspired a wide array of culture, from a Korean soap opera to a 150-person spectacle at the Drum Corps World Championships. Greg has toured extensively as a soloist, duo pianist, and chamber musician, with notable recitals in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Estonia, Romania, Israel, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, and most major U.S. cities. He has performed in many of the world’s most significant concert halls, including NYC’s Carnegie and David Geffen halls, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Munich’s Hercules Hall, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Seoul Arts Center, and Singapore’s Esplanade. Festivals include the Gilmore, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Grand Teton, Gina Bachauer, Styriarte, Grand Teton, Santa Fe, Chautauqua, Tippet Rise, Orford, Bowdoin, Ventura, Carmel Bach, and Minnesota Beethoven. He has soloed with the orchestras of San Francisco, Vancouver, Calgary, Boulder, Winnipeg, St. Paul, Rochester, Hartford, Liverpool, and more. Greg has performed in collaboration with Elizabeth Joy Roe as the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo, noted as “the most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “the very model of complete 21st-century musicians” (The Washington Post). Their five critically acclaimed albums on the Universal and Steinway record labels have spent over a dozen weeks at the top of the Billboard Classical Charts and have been heard in movie soundtracks and Olympic figure skating. They are recipients of a 2017 Club Cumming “YAAAAAAAS” award and the Classical Post’s 2019 “Most Innovative Instrumentalist” in piano. Greg is also a passionate advocate for community engagement. He has interacted with more than 100,000 students in person, utilizing his knack for decoding music at outreach events and master classes. His mission flourishes online where his reach is even more vast. He personally engages with 75,000+ social media followers, and he has produced, directed, and edited 70+ music videos (featuring himself, Anderson & Roe, and others) with the aim to excite and energize young musicians and fans.

With an Emmy® nomination, premieres at international film festivals, and millions of views on YouTube, his videos have been influential in shaping the next generation of artists. School teachers share the films in classrooms again and again, and beg inner pianists regularly cite the music videos as inspiration for learning to play. Rather stunningly, the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corp turned Greg’s first-ever music video, “The Devil’s Staircase,”—which has its own cult following among pianophiles—into their 2011 competition program for the Drum Corps World Championships, while his films with Liz appeared in the series finale of Will & Grace and were a source of inspiration for the lauded Korean soap opera Secret Affair. Greg & Liz recently held a composition competition to highlight the work of young composers; they performed excerpts from the 46 submissions on social media and are currently producing a music video featuring the winning composition. In yet another endeavor to demystify classical music, Greg operates a “Musical Mixology” blog featuring cocktails he’s crafted to complement the music of classical composers. Greg’s compositions and arrangements offer yet another outlet for his mission. His 100+ works are featured on the Universal, Sony, Deutsche Grammophone, Capital Records, EMI, and Steinway record labels and are frequently performed by concert pianists, major orchestras, and amateurs alike. With commissions by The 5 Browns, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Music Festival and more, his scores place musical history in dialogue with contemporary imagination, while fostering joyfulness and togetherness in music-making. Piano teachers regularly assign his music to students, and thousands of pianists have uploaded their performances to YouTube. As the Northwest Reverb argued, his music makes “a strong case that playing piano is the most fun thing that two people could ever do together.” Greg’s works are published by Alfred Music on the “Anderson & Roe Duos & Duets Series” and his own publishing company, Awkward Fermata Press. Greg is recognized as a world leader on the advancement of classical music and attracting new audiences.

For three iterations of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and one of the Cliburn Junior, Greg has served as host and correspondent for the must-watch webcasts, interviewing competitors and providing commentary and insight for millions of viewers worldwide. The finals of the 2017 competition aired live in movie theaters throughout the United States, and the 2022 competition is chronicled in the documentary Crescendo, which includes interviews with Greg. Similarly, Greg has shared his advocacy for classical music while guest hosting NPR’s From the Top, a radio show and non-profit organization devoted to developing the stories, talents, and character of young classically trained musicians. He has been invited to present as the keynote artist at dozens of music teacher conventions, including the 2013 Music Teachers National Association national convention, and international leader symposiums such as Entertainment Gathering, the Imagine Solutions Conference, Chicago Ideas Week, and Mexico’s Ciudad de las Ideas. Greg’s intuitively creative approach has attracted the attention of such media outlets as PBS, MTV, the BBC, Oprah, and the Today Show; he is profiled in Nick Romeo’s Driven, David Cutler’s The Savvy Musician, and Adrian Daub’s Four-Handed Monsters, and he has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today, All Things Considered,and A Prairie Home Companion, as well as magazines such as Pianist, Gramophone, Listen, Clavier Companion, and Chilled. Greg received his Doctorate and Master of Musical Arts degrees from Yale University and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where one of his performances was handpicked to appear on the Sounds of Juilliard album celebrating the school’s centenary. Additionally, he has studied with Aiko Onishi and John Perry. Greg is a Steinway Artist and his website is https://www.gregandersonpiano.com/

has appeared as soloist with Sir Simon Rattle, Nicholas McCegan, William Boughton, George Cleve, Alun Francis, and Adam Fischer and in concert halls such as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Zurich's Tonhalle, London's Wigmore Hall and Tokyo's Bunka Kaikan, among others. His formative training was with Aiko Onishi in California and Benjamin Kaplan in London. A native of the San Francisco Bay area, he is the founder of the Röntgen Piano Trio and has collaborated and recorded in the solo, two-piano, song/lieder and chamber music genres. As a solo recording artist, his thirteen solo CDs, all on Nimbus Records, have met with consistent critical acclaim. He has recorded two CDs of the solo piano music of Hans von Bülow and in 2013 embarked on research that explores the solo piano works of Dutch composer Julius Röntgen. His work has led to the release of four CDs of Röntgen's solo piano music and one of 2-piano music of Röntgen, Reinecke and Brahms. Included on the Bülow and Röntgen discs are previously unrecorded and unpublished works. Newly discovered works by Röntgen, edited by Mr. Anderson, are now available through Nimbus Music Publishing. His most recent recital recording of Röntgen's solo piano music (Röntgen VI) took place in November 2023 and was released in mid-2024. Mark is artistic director of the Challans Concerts in France each summer. These began in 2022 and have met with sold-out audiences in the beautiful Chateau de la vérie near the Loire region of France. In summer 2024, he returned with solo and chamber works for performances that included the Röntgen Piano Trio. Mark is chair of the keyboard division at University of British Columbia. His students have been prize-winners in all levels of competition and often go on to successful careers in music. He is regularly invited to give masterclasses and speak at piano pedagogy-related seminars and symposia and continues an active performing schedule in both North America and abroad. Mark Anderson is a Steinway Artist.

has performed organ, piano, and chamber concerts in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, and Michigan. His organ teachers have included Larry Smith, John D. Herr, and John Ferguson. Dr. Angelo also received extensive piano training from pianist Nellie Whittaker (a pupil of Guy Maier), a graduate of Julliard, and has coached additionally with Dr. Gary Wolf. Dr. Angelo has lectured and performed for the American Matthay Piano Festival, and has also co-edited with Marie Hasse, materials based upon the ideas of Matthay pupil Helen Parker Ford. Dr. Angelo is the Minister of Music/Organist at First Congregational Church, Saginaw, Michigan where he directs a comprehensive music ministry program consisting of adult and children’s choirs, handbell choir, recorder consort, and Musical Arts Series. Prior to his arrival at First Congregational Church in Saginaw, Michigan, Dr. Angelo served churches in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, Indianapolis, IN, and Winter Haven, FL. He is also the rehearsal pianist for the Saginaw Choral Society. He is a 1991 graduate of Indiana University with a doctorate in organ performance. He has a B.M. in Music Education and an M.M. in Sacred Music from Kent State University and is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honorary Society.

is head of piano studies at the University of Richmond. He is active as a recitalist, composer, chamber musician, and poet, and his playing has been acclaimed in Europe and America. Performing on many college campuses over the years, and frequently touring the eastern United States, he has also performed at venues such as Alice Tully Hall, the National Gallery of Art, the French Embassy, the Library of Congress, and at the Hudson River, Kemper, Virginia, and Spencer Museums. He has performed at the Salle Cortot and Salle Michelet in Paris where he has six times been artist-in-residence at Cité Internationale des Arts. Richard Becker’s music has been commissioned by Meet the Composer Grants, by grants from CRS Records, by the Peabody Trio in conjunction with the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and he has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow and nominee for an American Academy of Arts and Letters award. His performances and his music have been heard on NPR, Voice of America, WNYC, WETA, WGMS, and WCVE, and at the American Music Festival of the National Gallery of Art. They have also been featured at CMS and MTNA conferences and during residencies at Marshall, James Madison, Eastern Mennonite Universities,the Longy School of Music and the Peabody and New England Conservatories and at the Eastman School of Music. He coached chamber music alongside the late Blanche Moyse and he performed and coached chamber music with members of the Shanghai Quartet during their the decade of an artist-residency at University of Richmond. Richard Becker’s playing has been cited for its “powerful interpretations” by the Washington Post, for being “admirable in taste and technique” by the New York Times, and for being “brilliant and with seamless passagework and elegant phrasing” by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. His playing is grounded in the tradition of Arthur Schnabel acquired during his study with the late Leonard Shure while at Boston University (M. Mus.). His teaching owes much to the relaxation methods of Tobias Matthay, learned from Cécile Staub Genhart during his years at the Eastman School of Music (B.Mus. and Performers Certificate). He taught at the University of Texas and Boston University prior to joining the music faculty of the University of Richmond in 1975. In recent years, Richard Becker’s poetry has been published by America, Columbia Magazine, Visions-International, Cold Mountain and Poetica Magazine: Contemporary Jewish Writing and Art and his poetic sequence, “FATES,” was a 2008 chapbook of The Literary Review. Hiscompositions have been recorded by CRS and his performances are available on Albany Records.

has performed at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, the U.S. Embassy and Thai German Cultural Foundation Auditorium in Bangkok, the AUA Language Center in Chiangmai, the Cité Universitaire in Paris, Conservatorio Superior in Tenerife, Curs International Festival in Girona, Conservatory Professional de Musica in Vila-seca, and the Aspen Music Festival in Aspen. Philip Dieckow, critic for Pinault Reviews in New York City, described her performance at Weill Hall as “a splendid performance full of nuance and high contrast all within superb control.” She has been broadcast on the radio in Italy, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Romania, Canada, and the U.S. She has been an orchestral soloist with the Czech Radio Orchestra, the Medford String Orchestra, the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, and the Brookline Symphony Orchestra. Jackie Wattenberg, critic for The Salem, Mass., Evening News, wrote that her solo with the Salem Philharmonic “demonstrated a confident command of her instrument," and "her technique was equal to the fast and tricky runs. Her phrasing was musical and her play of dynamics, a constant source of color. Caliri is a fine musician and we hope to hear her again.” Her chamber music performances have been sponsored by the American Music Center, the Harvard University Group For New Music, “Nightshift,” a Children's Special for WCVB-TV, channel 5 in Boston, and broadcast on WGBH and WCRB. Lisa Caliri has recorded for Albany Records, and Centorino Productions, SAI Recording Project, and will record Birds, Books 1 and 2 by Seymour Bernstein on Naxos later this year. Miss Caliri was a top prize winner of the Clara Wells Piano Competition, Pinault International Piano Competition, and the Crescendo Competition for Young Artists. She was a recipient of the Yamaha Center Européen d'Activitiés Scholarship in Paris and the Museum of Fine Arts Performance Certificate in Boston. Miss Caliri taught master classes at the Siam Kolkarn School of Music and Kitathip Music School. She is a member of the faculty at The Boston Conservatory and the board of directors for the American Matthay Association for Piano.

is a native of Arizona and she holds a Master of Music and Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. She was later awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for studies in Vienna and Salzburg, and for many years she also studied extensively with Matthay's pupil Frank Mannheimer. A frequent performer at previous Matthay Festivals, she has been praised throughout the nation for the elegance, refinement, and bravura of her playing. She has taught at Wisconsin State University in Superior, and Lenoir-Rhyne College in North Carolina, and was artist-in-residence at Centenary College of Louisiana for twenty-one years. She was re-appointed to the faculty at Louisiana State University in 1995, and in 1996 became the first recipient of the Barineau Professorship of Keyboard Studies. Through the LSU graduate school, she has trained many successful, highly advanced pianists.

is a former President of the American Matthay Association and he currently serves as Associate Professor of Piano at The University of Alabama, where he coordinates the Gloria Narramore Moody Piano Area. As soloist and collaborator, Kevin has performed throughout the United States and abroad, and recent orchestral appearances have included Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and Triple Concerto, Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Finzi’s Eclogue, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, concertos by Ravel and Grieg, and Saint-Saëns’s Le Carnaval des animaux. He also serves as principal keyboard of the Tuscaloosa Symphony. Performing regularly as a chamber musician, Kevin has been a member of the Semplice Duo with flutist Cristina Ballatori for the past 25 years, and their performances have included world premiers at the National Flute Association Conference as well as recitals in Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Alabama, and New York as well as Mexico, South America, and Europe. In 2025, they released Night Surrendering to Dawn, a disc of American flute music on the Centaur label. Kevin has received a number of accolades for his teaching. Most recently, he was named a 2025 Foundation Fellow of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), and he was named as a Leadership Board Faculty Fellow for The University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences for excellence in research and teaching. In 2019, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Steinway and Sons Music Teacher Hall of Fame in New York City and was named 2019 Music Educator of the Year by the Arts Council of Tuscaloosa. Additionally, he was named the 2015 Teacher of the Year by the Alabama Music Teachers Association. Kevin maintains an award-winning studio of college and pre-college students, and his students have garnered awards at the national and international levels. In demand as a clinician and adjudicator, he frequently presents at the MTNA National Conference as well as state and local music teacher organizations throughout the country. In January 2021, Kevin served as the headliner clinician for the University of Georgia Piano Symposium, and, each summer, he serves on the faculty of the New Orleans Piano Institute. Kevin holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Louisiana State University, and Birmingham-Southern College, and his former teachers include Barry Snyder, Constance Knox Carroll, Anne Koscielny, Ann Schein, William DeVan, and Betty Sue Shepherd. Kevin recently served as President of the American Matthay Association for Piano, and he currently serves as President of MTNA for the 2025–2027 biennium. He also recently joined the roster of Alfred Publishing with his first three-volume series co-authored with Ingrid Clafield, Rare Recital Treasures.

came to the United States after making her acclaimed piano concerto debut in the National Concert Hall in Taiwan, winning an array of awards, and having her performances broadcast nationally. She has appeared internationally as a guest artist and presented master classes for the Music Teachers’ Association of California, Northern Illinois University, Illinois Wesleyan University, University of West Georgia, California State University, Fresno, InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy, and Aletheia University in Taiwan. As an avid chamber musician, Dr. Chang has collaborated with many musicians and faculty artists of the LA Phil, National Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), and USC Thornton School of Music. In high demand as an adjudicator for competitions, Dr. Chang has served as a judge for the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and Music Teachers’ Association of California (MTAC) piano competitions. Dr. Chang is an Associate Professor of Piano and Co-Chair of Keyboard Studies at Pasadena City College. In addition, she has taught at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) and the University of Southern California. Jocelyn holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree with Distinction from the USC Thornton School of Music, Master of Music degree from Peabody Conservatory, and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the National Taiwan Normal University. She has also studied at the Belarusian State Academy of Music. Her principal mentors are Daniel Pollack, Boris Slutsky, and Stewart Gordon. Her website is www.jocelynchang.com

is known for his versatility as a solo pianist, collaborator, composer, and improviser. He has won top prizes in over 15 international and national competitions including Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Wideman, and Heida Hermanns. His performances have taken him to over 25 US States and six countries. Dr. Cheung serves as an Instructor of Collaboration at Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music and was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. A sought-after educator, he has designed compositions and online practice intensives for piano students of all levels. Together with his piano partner, Eric Tran, they form the Happy Dog Duo. They won the Ellis Duo and the inaugural MTNA Stecher-Horowitz Competitions. Known for their memorized performances and unabashed humor, they bring a fresh perspective to the duo repertoire. He received his DMA and two MM degrees from the Eastman School of Music, as well as a BA from Stanford University. His primary teachers were Natalya Antonova, Jean Barr, Nelita True, and Thomas Schultz.

has been praised by the New York Concert Review for her "sensitive and imaginative" playing, and has captivated audiences throughout the world with her personal, thoughtful expressionist style. She has appeared in venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, Sarasota Opera House, Baltimore Museum of Art, Beaux concerts de la releve in Quebec, Château de Fontainebleau in France, and Zijingang Theater at Zhejiang University and Xi'an Conservatory in China, among others, and was heard on Chicago's WFMT. A founding member of the New York-based Almava Trio, she has also been featured in major music festivals including Yellow Barn, Norfolk, and Sarasota, and was a Performing Associate at Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine. As a sought-after pedagogue, Dr. Cho has been invited to adjudicate competitions at major institutions and organizations including Osaka International Music Competition (Chinese regional round), National Federation of Music Clubs (Young Artist Piano Award), University of Michigan, New England Conservatory Preparatory School, and Walnut Hill School for the Arts. She also taught as a piano instructor for the LINKS Signature Arts Program at The Juilliard School in New York and was on piano and chamber music faculty at NEC Preparatory in Boston. A performer-scholar, she was selected to present a lecture-recital at College Music Society for its biennial International Conference in Korea and has taught music theory at Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. A native of Korea, Dr. Cho holds a Master of Music degree from Peabody and Bachelor of Music from Juilliard, where she was honored with the John Erskine Graduation Prize. She also received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Juilliard as a C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow. Her doctoral dissertation, "Schubert's Sonata in B-Major, D. 575, Re-imagined" became an inspiration for her debut CD, "Schubert's 1817 Sonatas," released on Centaur in April 2021. Her teachers include Boris Slutsky, Julian Martin, Matti Raekallio, and Jonathan Bass. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Piano, Artist-Performer, at Grand Valley State University in Michigan and is the Artistic Director of Grand Valley Piano Chamber Series (www.gvpcs.org) In summer, she also teaches at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and ESME Camp. Her website is www.sookkyungcho.com

began her musical studies with piano lessons from her mother. She holds the Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in both piano and vocal performance from the University of Texas. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina where she was the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including the school’s highest honor, the Music Achievement Award. There she studied piano with John Kenneth Adams and voice with Evelyn McGarrity. At the University of Texas, she studied piano with John Perry and voice with Glenda Maurice and Bethany Beardslee. Additional piano study was with Frank Mannheimer for three summers in Duluth, Minnesota. She also attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, where she studied piano with Jerome Lowenthal and accompanying and chamber music with Gwendolyn Koldolfsky. A versatile performer, Nancy has fashioned a dual career in piano and in voice. She has received critical acclaim as a piano concerto soloist and as solo recitalist, and has performed throughout the South and many other areas of the US. She has an extensive solo repertoire, but has also performed as a collaborative artist with many instrumentalists and singers over the years. Concerto performances have included Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganni, Grieg's Piano Concerto, and Beethoven's Choral Fantasy for the Musica Sacra Concert Series at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta and again recently with the Buckhead Youth Orchestra. Nancy’s past presentations for the Matthay Festival have included solo recitals at Kennesaw State University and at the University of Kansas, and lecture recitals on Schumann’s Carnaval, and the Elliot Carter Piano Sonata. A lyric soprano, Nancy has sung many leading operatic roles as well as art song recitals, and has accumulated an extensive oratorio repertoire. While she lived in Texas, she was sought by local composers for her pure tone and perfect pitch. She sang several premiers of songs by Kathryn Mischell and Priscilla Mclean. She is soprano soloist on a CD entitled Songs for Adults and Other Children (Capstone Records) by Priscilla McLean. A highlight of her vocal study was the honor of being selected through national taped auditions to study with famed soprano Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Walter Legge in a German Lieder Summer Workshop in Thunder Bay, Canada. She was also soprano soloist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for a Youth Concert, singing the famous aria “Una voce poco fa” under the direction of William Fred Scot. Nancy sang as soprano soloist with the Musica Sacra Concert Series of Atlanta for 12 years, She sang the leading role in Bizet’s youthful opera, Dr. Miracle, for an entire season with the Atlanta Opera Outreach Program throughout the city schools of Atlanta. Her most recent performances have included singing Liszt’s Three Songs from William Tell at the American Liszt Society Conference last year at the University of Oregon. Nancy has also branched out into singing the great standard jazz songs of the early twentieth century in retirement homes and other venues. She will present next fall at the GMTA conference with Georgia’s jazz pianist legend, Geoffrey Haydn of Georgia State University, singing songs of Gershwin, Kern, Carmichael, Arlen and many others. In addition to her large private studio, Nancy has held teaching positions at Georgia State University, Clayton State College and the University of West Georgia. She was recently invited to join the piano faculty of the University of Georgia where she teaches applied piano primarily to piano majors. Nancy is active as an adjudicator and clinician for many piano festivals and professional organizations throughout the Southeast and is Past-President of Atlanta Music Teachers Association. In 2005 she received the Georgia Music Teachers Association Teacher of the Year Award.

received her musical education at Centenary College of Louisiana with teachers Constance Knox Carroll and Donald Rupert, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (musicology), the University of Texas at Austin (Danielle Martin and David Renner), and the Vienna Conservatory in Austria as a Rotary Foundation Fellow. In addition to performing and teaching a varied repertoire of the standard keyboard literature, she specializes in the music of Béla Bartók. A first-prize winner of the Bartók-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition, and recipient of the Regional Artist Award of the National Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, she is in demand as a performer, scholar and teacher. She is the author of a number of publications, including Bartók Perspectives (Oxford University Press), edited with Elliott Antokoletz and Benjamin Suchoff, a chapter contributed to A Bartók Companion (Cambridge University Press) and an article in the International Journal of Musicology. Her recordings include a solo CD of Bartók works entitled Evening in the Country. She is celebrating her thirtieth year on the music faculty at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, where she teaches piano, piano pedagogy, chamber music, and mentors undergraduate research. She is active in MTNA and NCMTA, which was recognized as MTNA State Affiliate of the Year under her leadership in 2020. When not at Elon, she lives with her husband, Stephen Faw, in the mountains of North Carolina.

received his doctorate in piano performance from Indiana University. Having begun his collegiate study at the Eastman School of Music, he earned his bachelor's degree from the Oberlin College Conservatory and his master's degree from the University of Wisconsin. His teachers at these schools were Menahem Pressler, Cécile Genhart, Jack Radunsky, and Howard Karp. Pre-college and summer study was with Willis Bennett, Rosina Lhévinne, Frank Mannheimer, and Aiko Onishi. He later coached with Igor Kipnis and Freda Rosenblatt. His two-volume doctoral dissertation, "The Solo Keyboard Sonatas and Sonatinas of Georg Anton Benda," is a major resource in the field of eighteenth-century music. Dr. Fee has performed numerous solo recitals throughout the country, as well as appearing as soloist with orchestra and collaborator. Married to Dr. Susan Dersnah Fee, theorist, pianist, and violinist, they opened the Dersnah-Fee School of Music in Midland, Michigan, in 1979. In 1999, they moved their studio to San Diego, California, and in 2016 they returned to Midland to resume teaching there. They have presented many master classes, lectures, and workshops in different parts of the country. Their website is www.dersnah-fee.com

is the current President of the American Matthay Association, and she is also Distinguished Professor of Music at Jacksonville State University. She completed degrees at the University of South Carolina and Florida Atlantic University. She enjoys performing as soloist and collaborative artist, and has performed at various universities and conferences. Recent performances include solo piano and chamber music by Francis Poulenc at Shorter University, a program of solo works shared with Karen Walwyn at Albion University, and a concert of eighteenth-century works for the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference. At her university she has been the recipient of the "Faculty Research Award" several times, and was honored to receive the Cleo and Carla Thomas Outstanding Education/Service Award in 2022. She organizes the annual Foothills Piano Festival, directs the JSU Music Academy, and is a Past President of the Alabama Music Teachers Association. She holds memberships in Sigma Alpha Iota, Phi Kappa Lambda, the Music Teachers National Association, the World Piano Teachers Association, and is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music.

earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music where he studied piano with Cécile Genhart and composition with Samuel Adler. He later studied piano with Leon Fleisher and with Dorothy Taubman. In 1978 he won the first Kennedy Center/Rockefeller Foundation International Competition for Excellence in the Performance of American Music. The following year he made his New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall, and has since performed widely, including a performance of the Copland Piano Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer. Other concerto appearances with that orchestra were conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich and Maxim Shostakovich. He has also given the world premiere of Samuel Adler’s First Piano Concerto at the Kennedy Center and the world premiere of the Piano Sonata of Judith Lang Zaimont. Mr. Gowen's numerous chamber music performances have included appearances at the Library of Congress Summer Chamber Festival, with the Kronos and Guarneri Quartets, and with cellist David Soyer. He has also made many duo appearances with his wife, pianist Maribeth Gowen. He has served as a judge for international, national, and regional piano competitions, and served on the Advisory Committee that created and ran the Seventeen Magazine/General Motors National Concerto Competition in the 1980s and 1990s. For several decades Mr. Gowen has written about piano music for such journals as The Piano Quarterly, Piano & Keyboard, and the London-based International Piano. In the Fall of 2022 the University of Rochester Press published his book A Performer’s Guide to the Piano Music of Samuel Adler. He has been on the faculty of the School of Music at the University of Maryland since 1981. He is one of the 48 pianists featured in Benjamin Saver's 1993 book The Most Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA.

enjoys an international performing career, showcasing a broad range of styles from the Baroque era to the avant-garde. Since winning top prizes in international competitions such as the Walter M. Naumburg Competition (USA), the Seoul International Music Competition (S. Korea) and the Isang Yun Competition (S. Korea), Mr. Guzman has performed across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. As a result of winning the top prize at the Concours International de Piano d’Orléans in Orléans, France, he has toured France extensively, giving performances and teaching masterclasses. He has appeared in concert in major international venues as Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Buenos Aires’s Kirchner Cultural Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall and others. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with the classical music world’s most exciting soloists, including Ilya Gringolts, Antoine Tamestit, David Fray, and Jeremy Denk, among others. He continually performs with members of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He appears regularly on the New York Philharmonic’s chamber music series “Philharmonic Ensembles,” and recently performed with musicians of the Chicago Symphony at their home in Orchestra Hall. While Mr. Guzman has won multiple international prizes for his performances of traditional repertoire, much of his career has been centered on music written after 1900; his performances have included world premieres by Donald Martino, Nico Muhly, and Paul Schoenfield. The New York Times hailed his performance of Christopher Theofanidis’s Statues as “coiled” and “explosive.” His CD of German and Austrian music from the past one hundred years, Vienne et après, is available on the Tessitures label; his CD of music of Paul Reale on the Naxos Label, “Chopin’s Ghosts,” was included in Fanfare magazine’s Top Five releases of 2018. He has subsequently recorded two additional albums of Reale’s music, including chamber music and concerti, to much critical acclaim. Mr. Guzman will release a premiere video recording of piano works of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez in 2023. Born in Texas, Christopher Guzman began studying piano at age nine and violoncello two years later. He worked primarily with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School, Anton Nel at the University of Texas at Austin, and the late Patricia Zander at the New England Conservatory. He is currently Professor of Piano at Penn State University, and will join the piano faculty of Northwestern University in the fall of 2023.

maintains an international presence as a noted teacher and performer. He has given solo, concerto, and chamber music performances in venues as far flung as the Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the IBK and Recital Halls of the Seoul Art Center, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the National Theater Concert Hall in Taipei, the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary, and halls and festival appearances in Newfoundland, Israel, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Romania, Russia, and China. His concerto performances have included concerts with the National Symphony and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestras, the San Angelo and Santa Barbara Symphonies, and the Tokyo City Philharmonic, working with such conductors as Andrew Sewell, Eric Zhou, Taijiro Iimori, Gisele Ben-Dor, Fabio Machetti, Randall Craig Fleisher, John DeMain, Ron Spiegelman, Daniel Alcott, and Darryl One, among others. Mr. Harding’s chamber music and duo collaborations have included internationally renowned artists such as clarinetist Karl Leister, flautist Andras Adorjan, and members of the St. Lawrence and Ying String Quartets, in addition to frequent projects with his distinguished faculty colleagues at the University of Michigan. He has recorded solo and chamber music CDs for the Equilibrium and Brevard Classics labels. He has additionally edited and published critical editions and recordings of works by Claude Debussy (Children’s Corner, Suite Bergamasque, the Arabesques and shorter works) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Viennese Sonatinas) for the Schirmer Performance Editions published by Hal Leonard. Professor Harding has presented master classes and lecture recitals in universities across the United States and Asia, as well as in Europe, Israel, and Canada. He is a Permanent Guest Professor at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China; he has additionally served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Sichuan Conservatory (2008) and Seoul National University (2011) and Ewha Womans’ University (2023). He has taught masterclasses and performed lecture recitals at all the major universities and schools of music in South Korea, and throughout China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. His students are active in and have won top awards in several international competitions, including those in Lyon, Sicily, and the Leeds. In addition to serving as Chair of Piano and teaching undergraduate and graduate piano performance and chamber music at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Mr. Harding also serves on the faculty of the Sicily International Piano Festival and is a regular guest artist and teacher at the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival in Tampa, Florida. Harding was born of American parents in Munich, Germany and raised in Northern Virginia. His collegiate studies were with Menahem Pressler and Nelita True. Prior to college, he worked for 10 years with Milton Kidd at the American University Department of Performing Arts Preparatory Division, where he was trained in the traditions of Tobias Matthay. He has taken 25 first prizes in national and international competitions and in 1999 was awarded the special “Mozart Prize” at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, given for the best performance of a composition by Mozart.

studied piano with the distinguished pianist Denis Matthews and later at London's Royal Academy of Music. He has performed as solo pianist, concerto soloist, accompanist and chamber musician in continental Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and throughout the UK, including recitals in the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room. He has broadcast for overseas television and radio and also for the BBC. Additionally, two-piano work with pianist Peter Noke has included performances across the UK, as well as in Hong Kong and China. In 2021, Peter and Julian celebrated their twentieth anniversary as a duo with a concert in Steinway Hall, London. Julian, who holds a PhD, a MMus, a BMus, an LRAM, and an ARAM, is a former ABRSM examiner, moderator, trainer and public presenter, and was also a mentor for the ABRSM's Certificate of Teaching course. He has taught academic music at Coventry University and London College of Music, and also has extensive experience of adjudicating and piano teaching, including in masterclass settings. He has released several CDs for the ASC and MSV labels, and his book Reading Musical Interpretation was published by Ashgate in 2009. His second book, The Mid-Twentieth-Century Concert Pianist: An English Experience, was published by Routledge in 2018 and, most recently (2023), he was editor and contributer to a multi-author compilation on the subject of topic theory and performance, also for Routledge.

has been hailed as "a consummate artist—brilliant, formidable, effortless, and the epitome of control and poise." He is an internationally distinguished musician, winning universal acclaim as orchestral soloist, recitalist, accompanist, chamber musician, and choral director. Career highlights include 2002 solo debut recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Wigmore Hall, with critics praising his "flawless technique, smooth and limpid phrasing, exciting programming." He has presented concert tours of the U.S., England, Nova Scotia, Russia, Italy, Czech-Republic, Mexico, Paraguay, and Poland. He has appeared with such notable conductors as Robert Spano, Donald Runnicles, Michael Palmer, and Stefan Sanderling. He has presented recitals with the Pacifica Quartet, cellist Zuill Bailey, soprano Mary Ann Hart, and tenor Sergio Blasquez. In response to Hurricane Katrina, he coordinated and performed in the 2006 "Pianists for New Orleans" tour of the United States, raising more than $100,000 for the city. Early in his career, Dr. Henry enjoyed phenomenal success, ultimately winning the Gold Medal in four International Piano Competitions. On three occasions, juries have spontaneously created special prizes to honor his performances, including "Best Performance of a 20th-Century Work" and "Best Performance of a Commissioned Work." In 2010, Dr. Henry released his debut recording, Twelve Nocturnes and a Waltz. The album is a collection of some of the world's best-loved melodies, including the world premiere of Alexei Stanchinsky's forgotten Nocturne from 1907.

Dr. Henry was also winner of two 2010 Telly Awards for the documentary about his recording experience. He is regularly heard on NPR's Performance Today and The Atlanta Music Scene. Dr. Henry produced the world premiere recording of Brahms's recently discovered "Albumblatt," available now on iTunes as a single. This track is included in the album As the Songbird Sings: Music of Schubert and Brahms, released in 2016. Dr. Henry was joined by violinist Helen Kim in a world premiere recording of Romance and Dance by Chen Yi for Centaur Records. He has also arranged and performed Faure's "Pie Jesu" for the Atlanta Boy Choir for the film Captain America: Civil War (2016). In 2022, he released a music video with The Atlanta Boy Choir entitled America, the Beautiful: One Nation (2022). Dr. Henry released a live recording of Scarlatti, Schubert, and Rachmaninoff (2024) under the ACA Digital label. Alongside his contributions as pianist and educator, Dr. Henry's multifaceted career includes much choral and vocal work, as well as many decades of service to the liturgical arts. He attended the Cobb County Center for Excellence in the Performing Arts and eventually double-majored in piano and voice at Kennesaw State University, where he studied with David Watkins. Since then, he has performed with numerous choirs around the world, both as director and accompanist. In 1997, Dr. Henry began his relationship with the Grammy award-winning Atlanta Boy Choir, serving as Assistant Director and Accompanist to the choir's founding director, Maestro Fletcher Wolfe. In 2019, Dr. Henry was appointed Artistic Director of The Atlanta Boy Choir. Dr. Henry earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland, where he stiudied with the late Anne Koscielny, and pursued additional studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Glinka Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia. As an educator and pedagogue, Dr. Henry presents lectures, masterclasses, residencies, and youth concerts at universities and conservatories around the world, and he has been featured in The American Music Teacher, Gramophone, and Clavier. He has served as recitalist, clinician, and juror for state, regional, and national MTNA conventions and competitions. He proudly serves as a tenured professor of Music and Coordinator of the Piano Area at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, GA. In 2023, Dr. Henry joined the faculty of the Adamant Music School, a summer music festival in Vermont. He is a founding member of the Summit Piano Trio. Now in their eighteenth season, the Summit Piano Trio made their Carnegie Hall debut in December, 2025. Robert lives in historic Marietta, GA with his wife (Melissa) and his son (Lucas). A Steinway artist, he is represented by Parker Artists, New York, and his website is https://www.roberthenry.org/

received his Bachelor of Music Degree from Indiana University in 1967, and completed his Master of Music Degree with Honors in 1972. His study of the piano began at age four with his aunt, and continued with Shirley Shaffer of the Matthay School. While at Indiana University, he studied with Gyorgy Sebok and spent summers in Duluth, Minnesota, studying with the late Frank Mannheimer. From 1969 to 1973, he studied privately with internationally-known pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Mr. Huber has concertized extensively throughout the United States since making his solo debut at age fourteen in Colorado Springs. He has appeared frequently on radio and television, including a widely broadcast video tape for the University of North Carolina Public Television; a live radio broadcast on WQXR, New York City; and on Minnesota Public Radio including its prestigious "Live from Landmark" series. His performances have taken him to hundreds of cities in over thirty-five states including engagements at the Indianapolis, Toledo, and Minneapolis Museums of Art, the Bakken Library, the Walker Art Center, and Steinway Hall. In addition, he has been heard frequently as soloist with regional orchestras, including the Colorado Philharmonic; the Gulf Coast Symphony; the Fairbanks, Alaska, Symphony; the Chattanooga Symphony; the Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra; and the Richmond Sinfonia. He has also appeared in recital as accompanist for many leading singers, including opera stars of the Metropolitan, New York City, Vienna, and La Scala Operas.

In 1968 Mr. Huber began a four-year tour of duty as concert pianist with the United States Navy Band in Washington, DC. In addition to numerous appearances with the Concert Band, he played over 350 engagements as accompanist for the Sea Chanters, the official Navy Chorus, appearing at the White House, the State Department, and for world dignitaries and government officials throughout the United States. Mr. Huber currently resides in New York City and Minneapolis, where he teaches privately in addition to his college teaching appointments. He has been actively involved in music education since 1960 maintaining his own private studios, college teaching positions, and appearing as guest lecturer and master teacher for colleges, universities, and professional organizations. He counts among his former students many scholarship and prize winners who are actively pursuing musical careers as distinguished performers, teachers, and church musicians. He is sought out by professional and amateur performing pianists alike who continue to study well beyond their conservatory training. During the 1989-90 academic year, Mr. Huber commuted to Princeton, New Jersey, where he served as Adjunct Professor of Piano at Westminster Choir College. From 1974-1987 he was tenured Professor of Piano at Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, Virginia, and he was Founder and Director of Celebrity Concerts, a series which presented an extensive array of internationally acclaimed artists. He also served ten years on the piano faculty of Augsburg College in Minneapolis, and for many years, he was a member of the piano faculty of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. In 1987 he was Artist-in-Residence for the theater department at Gardner-Webb College. During the summers he has presented lectures and recitals at both the American Matthay Association Festivals and the Mannheimer Piano Festivals, for which he was Artistic Director. He is often asked to adjudicate for national scholarship competitions and auditions, including the MTNA, the San Antonio International Keyboard Competition, the Miss Kentucky Pageant, and St. Paul's Schubert Club. He is an active member of several professional musical organizations and has served two terms as panelist for the Virginia Commission for the Arts. During the 1977-78 season, Mr. Huber's recitals featured the United States premiere of the Piano Sonata by Kenton Coe, distinguished American composer, including a performance at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The following season included the West Coast premiere of that work in a San Francisco debut recital at the Old First Center for the Performing Arts. In 1981 he made his Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) debut with cellist Paul Lawrence in New York City.

is the 2024 winner of the American Matthay Associations's Clara Wells Fellowship. and he is also a Grand Prize winner of the Chicago International Music Competition, and has performed across the USA, Asia, and Europe. Equally at home in traditional and contemporary repertoire, he has recently appeared with members of the Grammy winning Akropolis Reed Quintet and at Mozarteum (Salzburg), Core Memory Music, Orchestra New England, Gijón Piano Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Norfolk New Music Workshop. This season, he holds week -long residencies at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute and Yellow Barn in collaboration with celebrated composers Pascal L e Boeuf, Igor Santos, and Benjamin Webster. Lyndon is Assistant Professor of Piano and Music at West Virginia Wesleyan College, staff pianist at Rutgers University, and Artistic Director of the Bay Area International Piano Competition. He is a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music under Wei-Yi Yang, following studies with Roberto Plano and Logan Skelton at Indiana University (AD) and the University of Michigan (MM). Lyndon began his piano studies in childhood with Chun -Chi An, debuting with the Carmel Symphony Orchestra in 2012. Despite his musical inclinations, his early primary interest was Mathematics. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Yale University, graduating with several honors and working in the Office of Strategic Analysis as an inaugural Swensen Fellow. During this time, he continued piano under Elizabeth Parisot and Wei-Yi Yang. Outside of music, Lyndon enjoys brewing coffee in all forms , cooking, video games, and the company of his wife and two cats.

is a pianist and emerging pedagogue currently completing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance at the University of Kansas. Her research centers on performer-centered analysis and pianistic technique, with particular focus on Clara Schumann's four-hand arrangement of Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet, Op. 44, examining authorship, collaborative embodiment, and pedagogical implications. Jin has taught applied piano, group piano, and hybrid remote pedagogy using Yamaha Disklavier technology under Dr. Scott McBride Smith. She is the founder of Jin Piano Academy, where she has mentored over 100 students internationally. As both performer and scholar, she integrates technical analysis, historical awareness, and collaborative musicianship into her pedagogical approach.

is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Pedagogy at the University of South Carolina, where he studies with Nicholas Susi. At U of SC, he has assistantships teaching collegiate students group piano for collegiate students, teaching private and group lessons for pre-college students at the U of SC Center for Piano Studies, and in accompanying. As a performer, Jordan is primarily a classical pianist with experience as both a soloist and collaborative pianist. As a soloist, he was given the opportunity through the annual Classical Music Festival to perform in the Haydnsaal located at the Schloss Esterhazy in Eisenstadt, Austria. Soon after graduating from Viterbo in Wisconsin, he was invited back to play a part in Viterbo's 125th Anniversary Gala broadcast on PBS Wisconsin. As a collaborator, Jordan has frequently worked with singers and instrumentalists; of his most recent accomplishments as a collaborative pianist, he and his cooperating singer placed first in Bowling Green State University's annual Conrad Art Song Competition which gave them an additional opportunity to perform at the Toledo Art Museum. Jordan also holds degrees from Viterbo University where he received Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and in Music Education and a Master's of Music in Piano Performance from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Arts degrees in Piano Performance and is MTNA Nationally Certified. Her principal teacher has been Aiko Onishi (California). She also studied with Stephen Siek (Ohio), Julian DeGray (New York), and Denise Lassimonne (England). She has been a lecturer, performer, and master class teacher. She taught at Mission and West Valley Colleges in California and taught full time privately for many years. She now enjoys teaching a small number of students in Larkspur, Colorado, where she lives with her husband.

received her Bachelors Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada as a student of John Paul Bracey. She then continued her studies in Paris with French pianist Cecile Ousset. While in Paris, she also earned the Diplome Supérieur en Musique de Chambre at the Ecole Normale de Musique. Since the completion of a Masters Degree in Piano Performance and Literature with Barry Snyder at the Eastman School of Music, Ms. Lanners has worked as the Opera Coach at both the Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Akron. Some of her professional engagements have included performing regularly as the pianist for the Cleveland Opera on Tour, and as a resident pianist for the prestigious Meadowmount School of Music String Camp. Professor Lanners has performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe in both solo piano and chamber music. She has performed in public master classes for such artists as Jean Barr, Natalia Antonova, Robert Silverman, Anner Bijlsma, and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. She has participated with full scholarship in the Holland Summer Music Sessions, where she performed daily in public master classes and recitals located in and around Amsterdam. Ms. Lanners is engaged frequently as an adjudicator throughout Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. She has also served as the Chair for the OMTA and MTNA State Piano Competitions (2006-2014). She is active as a guest lecturer, having presented lecture-recitals at the Eastman School of Music Summer Piano Festival and for the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association Conference. In its June/July, 2001 issue, American Music Teacher published her article, "Welcoming the Collaborative Arts into our Teaching Studios." Ms. Lanners has also served on the faculty of the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute and as a featured artist at the Amadeus Piano Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She teaches applied piano, piano pedagogy, and class piano at Oklahoma State University.

has appeared as a solo and collaborative pianist and clinician throughout the U.S. and abroad, presenting his New York solo debut in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2004. His performances have been broadcast nationally and internationally on programs such as American Public Media's Performance Today, BBC3 in London and RTé Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany in Ireland, among many others. He was designated the 2014 Distinguished Music Teacher by the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association and was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame in 2021. Thomas has performed, presented master classes, and given lectures on various musical topics as a guest artist throughout the United States, in Mexico, Canada, Europe and Asia. In recent summers he has served on the faculties of the Shanghai International Piano Festival and Institute (in both 2018 and 2023), the Conero and AmiCaFest Piano Festivals in Italy, the 2025 OpusOne International Music Festival in California, and the 2024 International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival in Colorado. Within the past five years, he's performed and/or presented master classes at Rice University, Florida State University, the University of Washington, at Yonsei University in Seoul, in China at the Sichuan, Shanghai and Zhejiang Conservatories, the Shanghai Conservatory Middle School, and East China and Beijing Normal Universities, and in Mexico at the Unidad Académica de Artes de la Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas. Thomas served as a performer, teacher, and adjudicator at the Lee University International Piano Festival and Competition in Tennessee in 2021, having also been one of the three guest artists in 2012. He gave a master class on the NYU Steinhardt School of Music's Piano Artist Master Class Series in 2012. Other institutions he has visited as a guest artist include the Eastman School of Music, the Universities of Texas-Austin, Colorado-Boulder, North Texas, Miami, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Western Ontario (Canada), and Iowa; Northwestern, Syracuse, Louisiana State, Southern Methodist, and Baylor Universities. His latest recording, Ned Rorem: Piano Works, Volume 2, was released worldwide by Centaur Records. The disc received great critical praise, including this from the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Thomas Lanners brings exceptional detail and urgency to the repertoire, taking as much care with inner voices as he does with arching statements. Grade: A." An American Record Guide review of Thomas's previous CD, Ned Rorem: The Three Piano Sonatas, read: "Anyone who cares about mainstream 20th-Century piano music should seek out this superlative recording." Links to three tracks on the recording were included in Sunday New York Times articles in 2018 and 2022, on the occasion of Rorem's 95th birthday and then as a tribute soon after his death. In a review of Lanners's recording of Leonard Bernstein's solo piano works, Jed Distler wrote for ClassicsToday.com: "All told, Lanners' loving mastery easily holds its own in any company. Warmly recommended." His championing of American piano music was the topic of an interview article in a 2010 issue of Fanfare.

Thomas is an active writer on musical topics, with several feature articles, column contributions and reviews published in The American Music Teacher, most recently in 2024. His writing has also been published in Piano Magazine, with a feature article appearing in the Winter 2024 issue, Clavier and Canadian Music Teacher, among others. Always in demand as a clinician, he has presented many sessions at national and international conferences, including six appearances at the Music Teachers National Association (most recently in 2025) and three at the China International Piano Pedagogy Conference, hosted by the Shanghai Conservatory, which boasted 850,000 online attendees in 2021. Thomas has served as a juror in state, division, and national MTNA competitions, and for numerous international piano competitions based in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Lanners's students have been accepted into graduate piano performance degree programs at the Eastman School of Music, the Universities of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Southern California, Washington, Kansas, Missouri-Kansas City, Minnesota, the Manhattan and Mannes Schools of Music, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. They have had success in numerous competitions, winning Oklahoma Music Teachers Association Collegiate competitions (including 16 first place winners and numerous runners-up), 6 state winners in the MTNA Senior Artist competitions, 3 MTNA Young Artist winners (plus a national finalist in the String Chamber Music category), and 2 MTNA Junior winners. His students were named Alternate (Second Place) for the South Central Division four times since 2017. Seven of his students have won the OSU Symphony Orchestra's annual Concerto Competition in the past four years alone. Lanners was the 2021 recipient of the Wise-Diggs-Berry Endowed Award for excellence in the visual, performance or written arts at OSU, and a 2022 recipient of the OSU Regents Distinguished Research Award, presented each year to one arts and humanities faculty member at the university. Thomas received his Master's and Doctoral degrees from the Eastman School as a student of Barry Snyder. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude as a student of Leonidas Lipovetsky at Florida State University, where he won the Brautlecht Award as the School's Outstanding Rising Senior. He also studied under John Perry at the Aspen Music Festival and Jerome Lowenthal at the Music Academy of the West. He is Professor Emeritus of Piano at Oklahoma State University.

holds a B.A. from Bennington College, where her teachers included Julian DeGray and Claude Frank, and an M.A. from Columbia University. She also studied composition with Otto Luening and Lionel Nowak. She spent all six years at these schools on full scholarship. She then received a Fulbright Scholarship to study with composer Phillip Jarnach, who was Director of the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg. Upon her return from Europe, she worked at Columbia Records as Assistant to the President, Goddard Lieberson. She is highly active as a composer, and her compositions are principally in the area of chamber music and vocal works. She has also written orchestral pieces, an opera, music for dance and ballet, incidental theatre music, plus an assortment of pieces for various solo instruments. She does a great deal of arranging as well. Her compositions are published by Arsis Press, Carl Fischer, Boston Music Company and Kjos Publishers; they are also obtainable in A.C.A.'s Composer Editions. Recordings on CD are available on the Newport Classics, Capstone and I Virtuosi labels, the last of which is an all-Lauer disc of piano works entitled "Five Flower Rags." played by the composer. Lauer's compositions are widely performed, and have been well reviewed, both in this country and abroad. She has won many prizes and several commissions, and has served as composer-in- residence. She has been the subject of two one-woman concert programs, both of which were performed in New York City and Connecticut. A busy pianist, both as soloist and chamber music player, she has appeared in concert halls, on television, radio and in video format from Maine to Florida, from New York to Michigan. This includes fifteen solo recitals at Lincoln Center. As a teacher, she has worked most recently for years as Professor in the Music Department of the University of Bridgeport, with responsibilities for piano, theory, ear training, and computers-in-music. She pioneered a muIti-disciplinary course which featured works by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Mann and Nietzsche, on the subject of revolution in the arts. She has also taught Music Appreciation at Norwalk Community College. .

has appeared in recitals throughout the United States and Europe in venues that include  Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Curtis Institute of Music, Weill Concert Hall, and the National Gallery of Art.  Selected through national competitive auditions, she concertized throughout Western Europe as a United States Artistic Ambassador under the auspices of the United States Information Service and Voice of America. Appearing as soloist and collaborating pianist throughout the U.S. and Western Europe with artists that have included  Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Mstislav Rostropovich, Alessandra Mark, William Warfield, Rick Harrell, she has given United States premieres of many works of Henri Pousseur and world premieres of works of Benjamin Lees and Meyer Kupferman. Lee, a  Music Teachers National Association Master Teacher, has been featured by Fairfax County (Virginia) Association for the Gifted in “The Beauty of Music:  Reaching for the Stars”, in 2018 as a MusicLink Teacher of Distinction, and has received the 2018 Yamaha Teaching and Mentoring Recognition.    Formerly a faculty member of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Western Michigan University, George Mason University and University of Maryland,  Marjorie’s energy is currently devoted to her thriving independent studio of aspiring pianists.  Lee’s success as a teacher is evidenced by her students’ accomplishments as winners of top prizes in competitions in the U.S. and Europe, their successful performing careers and the major universities across the U. S. where they hold faculty positions. Many of her pedagogical ideas have been inspired by her work with Jorge Bolet, Irwin Freundlich, Adele Marcus, and, of greatest influence, Roy Hamlin Johnson. Her teaching philosophy was featured in the 2012 MTNA National Conference ‘Artistry in Piano Performance and Teaching’.  Noteworthy among countless awards, eighteen of her students have advanced to the finals of the Music Teachers National Association National Piano Solo Performance competitions, where four have been selected National First Place Winners.   Her students have been soloists with the National Symphony Orchestra as winners of Young Soloist Competitions, Capital Symphony, Piedmont Symphony and winners of the Young Arts Scholarships and become Presidential Scholars. ​

has had a long but interrupted affiliation with the Matthay Association. In 1971, while a student of Donald Hageman, he was the recipient of the first Clara Wells award. He was awarded the prize again in 1974. For the next ten years or so, Jim was active in the Association's annual festivals, and highlights for him included playing recitals in Toronto and San Jose. In 1976 he became the principal pianist for the San Francisco Ballet which gave him opportunities to perform as a piano soloist at numerous venues including Wolf Trap, Blossom Center, the Edinburgh Festival, and the White House. However, in the mid-80's he went through a period of disillusionment with the music "business" and abruptly decided to move to Las Vegas to become a poker dealer. After a few years, though, he hit an emotional and spiritual bottom. The silver lining, though, is that he became a believer in Jesus Christ. This newfound faith became the impetus for him to return to the piano seriously about 30 years later, around 2014, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In that endeavor he has been helped greatly by the piano teachers Steven Wilber, Cahill Smith, and currently, Lynn Worcester Jones. In 2018 he had the great privilege of presenting a recital at the Matthay festival in Jackson, Tennessee. He has been active since and is sincerely grateful to be back. He has been employed as a waiter at St. John's Restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the past 20 years.

is a pianist, organist, harpsichordist, and educator whose work bridges performance, scholarship, and advocacy. An active proponent of contemporary music and diverse composers, her performances and presentations embrace both established and underrepresented voices. As a scholar and educator, Liang engages varied audiences through lecture-recitals and presentations that explore repertoire, pedagogy, and artistic practice. Her work has been featured at national and regional conferences. Upcoming presentations include exploring works by underrepresented composers for the 2026 MTNA National Conference, as well as a session on the use of online platforms in piano teaching at the 2025 National Conference of The College Music Society. Liang is Assistant Teaching Professor of Piano at Northern Arizona University. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, along with additional degrees from Indiana University, Rice University, and Concordia College.

Has been described by New York reviewer Harris Goldsmith as “Formidable…dizzying…magical.” She is a gold medalist of several international piano competitions, and a multiple Grammy® nominee, including her nomination as “Best Instrumental Solo Album” for her debut disc Transfigured Bach. Continuing her recordings under Hänssler Classic, Transfigured Mozart (2006) and Transfigured Beethoven (2008) followed to great critical acclaim. Transfigured Tchaikovsky (2012) was awarded "The American Prize of Excellence in the Arts." Transfigured Brahms included the world-premiere recordings of 4 transcriptions by American composer Lowell Liebermann. Petronel maintains a full performance schedule as recitalist, orchestral soloist and chamber musician in major venues throughout the world. After her European debut in Rome, further highlights have included Carnegie Recital Hall, Théâtre du Châtelet & Salle Cortot (Paris), Mozarteum (Salzburg), Liszt Museum (Budapest), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Alte Handelsbörse (Leipzig), Bass Hall (Fort Worth), as well as the Ravinia, Gilmore & Music in the Mountain Festivals. Petronel has appeared with orchestras such as the St. Petersburg State (Russia), Martinú (Czech Republic), Bucaramanga (Colombia), Batumi (Republic of Georgia), Sicilian Chamber (Italy), and several others in the US and South Africa, under the batons of Vasily Petrenko, Bernhard Gueller, Karina Canellakis, Dmitry Manilov, Yoshimi Takeda, James Brooks, Robert Hanson, and Fuzao Kajima. Ms. Malan’s career was launched following five gold medals at international piano competitions throughout the United States. These included the Louise McMahon, Missouri Southern, Los Angeles Liszt “Budapest Concert” and Hilton Head International Piano Competitions. She also garnered the grand prize in the Web Concert Hall Competition (2000) and gold medals in the Grace Welsh Piano Competition and the Young Texas Artist Award. Born in South Africa, Petronel began lessons with her mother at age four, continuing with Adolph Hallis, Joseph Stanford and Albie van Schalkwyk. She debuted with the Johannesburg Symphony at age ten and subsequently won all major national competitions, before moving to the United States. Petronel completed both her graduate degrees at the University of North Texas. Her teachers included Steven de Groote, Ralph Votapek and Joseph Banowetz and intensive coaching sessions from American legend Earl Wild. Although residing in the United States, Ms. Malan continues strong ties to her native South Africa. She received the “Rapport/City Press Prestige Award” as one of the “10 Most Inspirational Women in South Africa,” and has appeared on magazine covers, fashion spreads and even as picture-clues in crossword puzzles. She was awarded both a KKNK Kanna and a KykNET Fiesta awards for her live performances in South Africa. Apart from a love for vintage gowns, Ms. Malan’s stage wardrobe is designed by foremost South African designers. A frequent speaker and promoter of classical music in schools, scholarships in her name are awarded to promising young musicians.

received his B.M. in piano from the Eastman School of Music, his M.F.A. in composition from the University of California, Irvine, and his Ph.D. in composition from the University of Chicago. Originally from Southern California, he studied piano with Lucille Straub and composition with the late Roy Harris. In 1976, he was a recipient of the Los Angeles Young Artists Foundation Scholarship and was a finalist for the Debut Award. While at Eastman, he received both the José Echaniz Prize and the Ethel Lannin Prize for his performances, studying with Frank Glazer and Cécile Genhart. At Chicago, his composition teachers included John Eaton, Shulamit Ran, and Ralph Shapey. In 1996, Dr. Marsh joined the faculty of the Fine Arts Department at Roanoke College, where he has offered various courses in theory, composition, music history, world music, and the humanities. He spent his 2003–2004 sabbatical in residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, during which time he completed professional training workshops in computer music at IRCAM; he was subsequently selected to return for a summer residency in 2007. In 2005, he offered Roanoke College's first course in computer music and also taught two Max/MSP courses. Installations of his sound art have been exhibited in France, Germany, and the United States. Marsh is a member of ASCAP and currently serves on the board of the American Matthay Association. As a member of the College Music Society, he has presented his instrumental compositions at the CMS Mid-Atlantic regional conference. His article, "Shapey at the Piano: Evolution of a Style," appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of American Music, and his "Schnittke's Polystylistic Schemata: Textural Progression in the Concerti Grossi" appeared in Schnittke Studies (2017). His recent research, which focuses on the application of statistical and transformational analyses to the phenomenology of recorded Chopin performances, will be forthcoming in the proceedings of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music's "Translating Music #1: The Idea of a Musical Work and Its Transformations" conference in Lodz, Poland.

is a soloist, opera coach, chamber musician and orchestral pianist based in Blacksburg, VA, where he is associate professor of piano and collaborative piano on the music faculty at Virginia Tech's School of Performing Arts. Significant collaborations include concerts with baritone Donnie Ray Albert, flutist Valerie Coleman, mezzo-soprano Marta Senn, the late mezzo-soprano Barbara Conrad, and many others. He has appeared with former Boston Symphony principal trombonist Norman Bolter, former Juilliard String Quartet violinist Earl Carlyss, saxophonist Harvey Pittel, and under the baton of the late Lorin Maazel. Masters has performed solo, chamber and vocal recitals throughout the U.S. and in Europe. As a solo pianist, Masters plays a wide variety of standard and non-traditional repertoire, including contemporary pieces written for or commissioned by him. A strong proponent of contemporary American composers, he has performed world premieres of pieces by Kenneth Frazelle, Charles Nichols, Kent Holliday, and many others. He is an enthusiastic performer of British music from the early 20th century, focusing in particular on the solo piano music of John Ireland. The critic John France wrote on MusicWeb International "Richard Masters approaches [John Ireland's Piano Sonata] with great style and understanding: all the facets of Ireland’s art are present here: ‘…the lyrical, the dramatic, the extrovert and the melancholy – the intense self-questioning and the open, almost naïve, avowals.’" Recent appearances include performances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's "Music at the Gardner" series, the National Flute Convention in Washington D.C., the San Francisco Conservatory, the Schola Cantorum in Paris, and concerts in Toronto and Trinidad/Tobago. He has also performed at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, CA and the Percy Grainger Home and Museum in White Plains, NY. His album "Let Evening Come," a disc of American art song performed with sopranos Emily Martin and Ariana Wyatt, was selected by Chicago Tribune critic Howard Reich as one of the "best classical recordings of 2020." "Percy and Friends," a collection of music by Percy Grainger and his contemporaries, and "In a Time of War," a recording of music for clarinet and piano performed with Philip O. Paglialonga, are available on Heritage Records. A forthcoming disc of Ernest Bloch transcribed for clarinet and piano will also be available on the Heritage label. In addition to his performances as a pianist, Masters is active in the world of opera and musical theatre as a coach and conductor. He recently conducted performances of Carousel, Fiorello!, Oh, Kay!, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Le Nozze di Figaro, Babes in Arms, and in Summer 2018 served as associate head coach with the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, working on Wagner's Das Rheingold and Strauss's Arabella. In April of 2019, he and his Virginia Tech colleague Amanda Nelson revived The Sap of Life, a show written by the song writing duo Maltby and Shire that was last performed in 1964. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he was principal opera coach at the University of Texas at Austin. Richard Masters is a Yamaha Artist. He holds degrees from University of Colorado at Boulder (BM), The Juilliard School (MM), and the Eastman School of Music (DMA).

is a past President of the American Matthay Association for Piano, a former editor of the Matthay News, and currently serves as the Association's Secretary. A native of Ohio, he retired from teaching at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, in 2024, and resides in Denton, Texas. He taught piano, organ, and related courses, and served as University Organist, University Carilloneur, Coordinator of Keyboard Studies, and Coordinator of Concerts and Recitals. Previously, he taught at Blue Mountain Christian University. He holds degrees from Manchester, Youngstown State, and Ball State universities. He was principal pianist with the Jackson Symphony for 20 years, and served Presbyterian and United Methodist churches as organist. Currently he remains active by performing, adjudicating, and substituting in churches. McRoberts has been active in the American Matthay Association for piano for 40 years, and in addition to his services as an office holder, he has presented sessions on a variety of topics at numerous festivals. He served as president of the Southern Chapter of the College Music Society, and Tennessee Music Teachers Association, received the Distinguished Service Award from TMTA and the Matthay Association, and Teacher of the Year from TMTA. He has made presentations for various other professional organizations including Music Teachers National Association, College Music Society, Society for American Music, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, and Canadian Federation of Music Teachers Associations on various topics including the use of silence in music, Chinese piano music, the Second Year of Pilgrimage by Liszt, Chen Yi, Heinrich Pfitzner, Harriet Cohen, and the teaching of Tobias Matthay.

is the current Vice-President of the American Matthay Association for Piano. He made his solo debut in a New York City performance with the New England Youth Ensemble at the age of 15. He has since performed as a featured soloist with orchestras across the United States, including the Northwest Florida Symphony, the New Orleans Symphony, the Port City Symphony (Mobile, AL), the Mesa Symphony (Arizona), the Gulf Coast Symphony, and the Boise Baroque Orchestra. Moreau's honors include a top prize at the Debose National Piano Competition and a collegiate artist award from the Alabama Music Teachers Association. In 2007, he was a finalist at the World Piano Pedagogy Conference's PIANOvision Most Wanted Piano Competition, an international online competition created by Benjamin Saver. As a collaborative artist, Moreau has performed with a diverse array of distinguished international players, including clarinetists Robert Spring and Jorge Montilla, oboists Andrea Ridilla and Gonzalo Ruiz, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, and composer-violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). He has appeared at national and international conferences, including those of the College Music Society, International Double Reed Society (IDRS), and the International Clarinet Association (ICA). Other performances include appearances with the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra, and at the McCall Second Sunday Sounds Concert Series (Idaho). Moreau served as principal keyboardist for the Boise Baroque Orchestra from 2012 through 2018. Moreau holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Arizona State University, and a Master of Music degree in piano performance from Indiana University. His collegiate career began at the University of South Alabama, where he was a recipient of the Theodore Presser Award. Moreau's major teachers were Robert Hamilton, Karen Shaw, and Jerry Bush. He has also coached with Lee Luvisi, Fabio Bidini, Mykola Suk, and Leonard Hokanson. Moreau serves as a Lecturer of Music at Boise State, teaching courses in piano, music theory, and music history. In addition to his collegiate teaching and performance activities, he is also an active studio teacher and adjudicator.

is Professor of Music Theory at Northern Illinois University. He earned his Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy and Literature at the University of Texas at Austin studying under David Renner. Novak subsequently received a Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was awarded the Kent Kennan Scholarship in Music Theory and the John Maresh Scholarship in Czech Culture. Novak has taught at Austin Community College, the University of Texas at Austin, and Oberlin Conservatory. He joined the faculty of the School of Music at Northern Illinois University in 1996. Novak has published a monograph on the symphonic works of Leoš Janáček, and recently co- authored a book on Czech popular and folk music performed regularly in the state of Texas. Novak has written articles for College Music Symposium, Indiana Theory Review, the International Journal of Musicology, Bulgarian Musicology, Kosmas, and Hudební Výda as well as for Oxford and Clerendon Presses. The subjects of his articles include the music of Dvořák, Bartók, Janáček, Suk, and various styles of popular music.

is one of America's most distinguished pianists and teachers. She was born in Tokyo and began her piano studies with her mother, Teiko, an accomplished pianist and a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music. After winning a Japanese national competition, she was invited to study at the Eastman School of Music with Cécile Staub Genhart, with whom she credits her foundation as a pianist. After earning her B.M. with Distinction, Performer's Certificate, and Artist's Diploma, she continued to study with Frank Mannheimer, with whom she worked extensively over the next sixteen years. During the winter of 1964-65, she had the privilege of studying with Dame Myra Hess in London. Miss Onishi has concertized and given lectures in over 60 cities in the United States and she has played in all of the major cities in Japan. For six years he was a professor at the Toho School of Music in Japan and for twenty-one years she served on the faculty of San Jose State University in California. During those years she produced many outstanding students, some of whom have won prizes at international competitions including the Leeds, Busoni, Casadesus, Kapell, Chopin, Munich, University of Maryland and the Washington International Bach Competition. She is the author of Pianism, a highly acclaimed pedagogical work which has been praised throughout the world.

is a versatile pianist who specializes in rare music by composers such as Leo Ornstein, Alexei Stanchinsky, Josef Suk, Max Reger, and Maurice Emmanuel. With recital programs balancing obscure works with better-known repertoire, Mr. Painter sheds light on music off the beaten path that deserves to be heard alongside the classics. He recently performed Leo Ornstein's Nocturne No. 1, which has one extant recording, and premiered two movements from composer Cody Raymes's piano suite Ruminations. As soloist, he has performed in masterclasses for esteemed artists including Kenneth Broberg, Sean Chen, Martin Katz, and Asaf Zohar. He also won 1st and 2nd prizes at the Texas Music Teachers Association competition for five consecutive years. In addition to his solo endeavors, Mr. Painter is an adept collaborator. He served as a graduate assistant in collaborative piano for three years including one season with University of South Carolina's opera program as staging pianist and orchestra keyboardist. For his exemplary work, he was presented with the school of music's ensemble accompanying award. Mr. Painter currently teaches music theory and aural skills as a graduate assistant at the University of South Carolina where he is about to enter the final year of his DMA in piano performance under the tutelage of Dr. Nicholas Susi. He received his MM from Baylor University, where he studied with Dr. Terry Lynn Hudson, and his BM from University of Houston, where he studied with Nancy Weems and Dr. Andrew Staupe. An interesting fact about Mr. Painter is that he experiences grapheme-color synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon that causes letters, numbers, musical notation, and piano keys to trigger specific colors in his mind's eye, making his last name slightly less ironic for a musician.

Is the current Editor of the Matthay News, and she has performed solo recitals, with chamber ensembles and with orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Mexico. She began playing the piano at the age of two, studying with her father, and made her piano debut at Wigmore Hall in London. During 20 years as Orchestral Keyboardist with the Phoenix Symphony and the Florida Orchestra, she performed solo concerti on piano, harpsichord, and fortepiano, major orchestral and oratorio literature, jazz, and even the music of Frank Zappa. Her discography includes five recordings with those orchestras. Mary's chamber music experiences include performances with clarinetist David Shifrin and friends, with the Phoenix Chamber Music Society Winter Festivals. In Arizona, she has been a member of Bach West, Bel Canto Piano Trio, the Bel Canto Players and, in Florida, with the Phoenix Ensemble, The Florida Orchestra Chamber Players, and the Myakka River Piano Trio; the latter group recorded music by Haydn, Gaspar Cassadó, Gwenneth Walker and Astor Piazzolla. Festival appearances have included Chamber Music Sedona, the New Hampshire Music Festival, and Park City International Chamber Music Festival. Mary also enjoys accompanying singers in art song; for thirty years she performed recitals with her husband, tenor Warren Hoffer, who specialized in the British song. Mary holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Texas Tech University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from ASU. Her dissertation, The Orchestral Keyboard, a guide for pianists, is based on her experience. She earned performance diplomas from both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, London. She has taught at Texas Tech University, Arizona State University, and in the Maricopa Community College District. She is also an Earth and Planetary Geologist, holding a Master of Science degree from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU. Her thesis examined aeolian features on the surface of Mars, using data from the NASA Spirit Rover. She is a former President of the American Matthay Association for Piano (2015-2018), and in her most recent incarnation, she is working toward a Master of Music degree in organ performance, studying at ASU with world-renowned concert organist and music historian, Dr. Kimberly Marshall.

received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the Ohio State University where she studied with Miriam Mooney, herself a student of Tobias Matthay. At Ohio State, Nancy also minored in Vocal Performance. At Wright State University, Nancy earned a Master of Music with a concentration in piano. There, she studied with Donald Hageman. with whom she continued to study for a few more years post-graduation. In addition to traditional piano study, Nancy has also focused on jazz piano studies. She is a past lecturer-performer at the Matthay festivals. She has won the WSU Concerto Competition and performed Gershwin's Concerto in F with the WSU Symphony Orchestra. Nancy concertizes in the southern Ohio area including appearances at the Dayton Art Institute, Dayton Music Club events, and Sinclair Community College. Partnering with Jim Lees, Nancy and Jim performed at the Art Institute, playing Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, performed outdoors and complete with a helicopter flying overhead mid-performance! She is a silver medal winner from the American College of Musicians/National Guild of Piano Teachers for her performance of Alberto Ginastera's Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22. She is on the music faculty at Sinclair College in Dayton, where she teaches piano and music courses, and is a pianist for the vocal music and theatre departments. In addition, Nancy is very active as a professional pianist at Wright State University in Dayton, working in the music department and music theatre division. Other activities include serving as pianist and musical director for many musical theatre productions in the Dayton area. Nancy lives near Dayton in Centerville, Ohio.

received her early musical training in Japan under Noriko Kanayama and Shuku Iwasaki. Matriculating to the United States for further study, Watanabe entered the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University as a scholarship student under Lillian Freundlich, completing her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance. She later earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland at College Park, where she studied with professors Stewart Gordon and Roy Hamlin Johnson. Her dissertation, Tradition and Synthesis: Influences on the Solo Piano Works of 34 Japanese Composers Surveyed (704 pp), dealt extensively with the ethnomusicological aspects of traditional Japanese music as well as with contemporary Western-style compositions by Japanese composers. Her article, Japanese Music: An East-West Synthesis, has been published in American Music Teacher, the official magazine of the Music Teachers National Association. In demand as a lecturer on musical topics, especially those related to Japanese contemporary music, Dr. Watanabe has been invited on three occasions to deliver lectures at the symposium, “Music of Japan Today: Tradition and Innovation” at Hamilton College in New York. Watanabe was a presenter on Japanese composers at the 29th National Conference of the Society of Composers Inc. at the University of Memphis, Tennessee; additional lecture/demonstrations were given at the 1993 & 1996 annual meetings of the College Music Society, Mid-Atlantic Chapter. Expanding her interests to Historical Keyboard performance, she appeared at the 2018 Annual meeting of Historical Keyboard Society of North America in Greenville, SC and was invited to perform at the Sigal Music Museum, Greenville, SC in 2019. Dr. Watanabe is frequently engaged as a soloist, chamber-music performer, and lecturer. She has appeared in Japan and throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Mid-West, and Southern United States, over 70 colleges, universities and other concert venues. Her performances have been regularly broadcast on Public Radio, WVTF and WMRA. She has been a featured soloist with the Elon University Orchestra, Eurydice Community Orchestra of Roanoke (renamed the Valley Chamber Orchestra) and University-Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra (currently the University Symphony Orchestra). Her repertoire includes Bach's Keyboard Concerto in D Major; Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 & No. 3; the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No.1; and Double Piano Concertos by Mozart & Poulenc. She also served as Director of Accompanying at Washington & Lee University from 1999-2012; collaborative pianist for the "Con Spitito" Concert Series from 1992-2003; and faculty for the Princeton Chamber Play Week Virginia from 2011-2016. Watanabe is a Parma Artist/Parma Recordings [Capstone, Ravello Navona Labels/Naxos Distribution]. As a founding member of Ardo Duo (with her husband, Byron W. Petty) and Ardo Consort, her performances can be heard on Traveler’s Tales—Recent Compositions of Byron W. Petty, Capstone Records label [CPS-8776], currently available as MP3 downloads through Navona label http://www.amazon.com/Petty-Travelers-Tales/dp/B0084ALIFY (re-released in 2012); Tendrils, Navona Records/Parma Recordings [NV 5833] which was released in the fall of 2010, also available through Amazon as well as iTunes; Clementi Grand His Works His Forte Piano, recorded on Washington & Lee University's "1814 Clementi Grand Piano”--featuring solo and duet works of Muzio Clementi (recorded together with her former colleagues, Dr. Timothy Gaylard and Parma Artist Byron W. Petty on 1-key traverse flute)--released in 2014, celebrating the instrument's 200th anniversary; Navona Records/Parma Recordings [NV 5966]. Also Byron W. Patty’s “Rhapsody for Armenia” composed in 2016 is available through Youtube. Dr. Watanabe Petty was on the faculty at Washington and Lee University as Instructor of Music and taught Applied Piano, Aural Skills, Class Piano, Music Theory, and Supervised Accompanying. Retired from her full-time position in 2021, she is currently serving as Lecturer in Music in a part-time capacity to teach Class Piano. She is a member of the American Matthay Piano Association, Historical Keyboard Society of North America and Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society.

began her piano studies at the age of 2 with her mother, Evelyn McCann Prior, in the Eastman School Preparatory Department in Rochester, NY. Ms. Phillips received both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music. Her artist teachers have included Frank Glazer, Ozan Marsh, and Patricia Benkman Marsh, and she also coached with Alfred Mouledous and John Perry. At Eastman, Fredrica was awarded the prestigious Performer's Certificate, and she was a winner of Eastman's concerto competition. As the winner of the 1975 Young Artists in Recital Piano Competition, she played in recital at Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall). She has played recitals, chamber music concerts and performed concertos with orchestras in Rochester, New York City, Dallas, Atlanta, Michigan, Chicago, and other cities, performing repertoire such as the Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto, Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 and Prokofiev Concerto No. 2. Fredrica maintained a private piano studio in Plano, TX for many years, and was an active member of the Plano Music Teachers Association, Texas MTA, MTNA, and the American Liszt Society. Fredrica was honored as a Texas Distinguished Teacher in 2019 and Teacher of the Year in 2020 by Texas MTA and was named an MTNA Foundation Fellow in 2022. She currently serves as treasurer for the American Matthay Association. Fredrica also received an MBA degree from the University of Connecticut. She now lives in the Boston area after retiring from teaching, with her husband Paul and two cats.

is a native of South Carolina, and received her Bachelor of Arts with a major in music education from Furman University in Greenville. She later studied voice with Audrey Nasserman at the University of Louisville. She spent a 10-month period in Ruschlikon, Switzerland (Zurich Canton) at the Baptist International Seminary, with her then husband, Wallace Kilpatrick, and studied theology for 2 semesters as was required of wives. The international experience shaped a lot of Jacqueline's thoughts afterwards. When she returned to Louisville she taught junior high school music for a year before going to Atlanta, where she studied voice with Irene Harrower for 2 years. Jackie received a Master of Music with emphasis on voice peformance from Georgia State Uiversity in 1987, studying voice with Peter Harrower, a bass soloist of some renown. She also studied in London with Meribeth Bunch in conjunction with her Master's study, learning more about the anatomy of the voice, and she also pursued some studies at the Royal Academy of Medicine. She studied piano with Powell Everhart in Atlanta for 3 years and with Joseph Meeks of Kennesaw State University. For 10 years she taught in the Cobb County Public Schools as Music Specialist, and for several years she was the music director of Cobb Children's Theater. She has served the Nativity Lutheran Church since 1971, where she served as organist, pianist, Music Director, and Chancel Choir Director, at various times. She served as Director of Music for 9 years at Southminster Presbyterian Church, where she established their first hand-bell program, as well as directing chancel choir and children's choirs. Jackie is nationally certified by the National Music Teachers Association as a voice performer and teacher of voice. and by the Georgia Music Teachers Association as a certified piano teacher. She is also a member of MTNA. Jackie maintains a voice and piano studio in Austell, Georgia, where she and her husband, James, now live. She often presents lecture recitals on various topics for area music teachers and is in demand for judging auditions and competitions.

started studying the guitar at the age of 11 and had developed an equal temperament tuning system for the instrument by the age of 15, which he later used in greater depth in his piano tuning. His piano teachers include Paul Orlene, Harry Persse, and Regina Pudney of Juilliard. He was also a close friend of Powell Everhart—a student of Isidor Philipp—for whom he tuned and with whom he studied for the last ten years of Everhart's life. One of the most respected tuners and technicians in the greater Atlanta area, James has now been tuning and rebuilding pianos for six decades.

is a former president of the American Matthay Association. She appears nationally in recitals including performances on the “Live from Landmark” series on Minnesota Public Radio, on the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series from the Chicago Public Library, broadcast live on WFMT Radio, and on KOHM Radio in Lubbock, Texas. She has been a featured recitalist/lecturer with the Mannheimer Piano Festival at the University of Minnesota in Duluth several times, and her performances there have been rebroadcast on Minnesota Public Radio. Her performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Elgin (Illinois) Symphony Orchestra was acclaimed by critics as “powerful and dazzling”. Dr. Razaq makes frequent appearances as Artist-in-Residence in concerto performances with the Harper Symphony Orchestra in Illinois and has also played with the Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra in Duluth. Solo appearances have been at colleges and universities in Illinois, Texas, Minnesota, Georgia, Arizona, Tennessee and North Carolina. She has performed for the American Matthay Association for Piano several times. “Let’s Understand Tobias Matthay’s Relaxation Technique” was the title of her presentation for a recent Canadian Federation Music Teachers Association national conference in Halifax. As a young pianist, Dr. Razaq received second place in the Women’s Association of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra Competition. A Fulbright grant took her to the Royal Academy of Music in London to study for three years with Matthay pupil Hilda Dederich. She received the Licentiate Diploma in Piano Performance from the Royal Academy. Her London debut recital at Wigmore Hall received excellent reviews. She was an award winner in the Canals International Competition in Barcelona. Dr. Razaq received her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Piano Performance from Texas Tech University, studying with William Westney; a Master of Music Degree from the University of Illinois, studying with Stanley Fletcher; and a Bachelor of Music Degree with Distinction from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Cécile Genhart. Early studies were with Ruth Rogers, and lessons for several summers were with Frank Mannheimer. Both Ruth Rogers and Frank Mannheimer took turns residing in the Duluth home which Mr. Mannheimer owned. Dr. Janice Larson Razaq is a past President of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association, and past Director of the East Central Division of MTNA. She is Director of Keyboard Studies at William Rainey Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, and has also taught at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. Dr. Razaq presents lecture/demonstration/recitals for the Illinois State Music Teachers Conferences. Recently she gave sessions entitled “Teaching Piano Should Imply Teaching Injury Prevention in Practice and Performance” and “The Sometimes Misunderstood Relaxation Technique of Tobias Matthay”. She gives many lecture demonstrations for local area groups of ISMTA, and for the American Matthay Association. Dr. Razaq is an esteemed adjudicator as well as college professor and private teacher. She plays chamber music with CSO members and was a featured soloist at Stringfest held at Illinois State University. She is a published feature article author for the late Keyboard Companion magazine, and has written book reviews for the American Music Teacher magazine.

is Professor Emeritus of Piano at the University of Kansas, where he taught piano and piano literature for over 50 years. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he studied piano with Cecile Staub Genhart. In 1962 he received a Fulbright Scholarship for study at the Academy of Music in Vienna. He furthered his studies with Frank Mannheimer and in 1973 became a founding member of the Mannheimer Piano Festival Association. He has a long career as an active recitalist and is recognized as an outstanding lecture-recitalist in the field of twentieth-century piano music as well as the traditional repertoire. He has presented recitals, lecture-recitals, and workshops throughout the United States and recently lectured and performed in Japan. His orchestral appearances include the premieres of two concertos, and he has performed with the Dorian Wind Quintet. He has received numerous research grants from the University of Kansas. His recording of intermediate level twentieth-century piano music, entitled Kanzona, was the result of one such grant.

Retired from the Butler School of Music of the University of Texas at Austin in 2017, after a distinguished career of teaching there for 43 years. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Cecile Genhart. He received the Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in addition to the Performer's Certificate and Artist Diploma in piano performance. His early studies were with Eleanor Sokoloff in Philadelphia. Mr. Renner was awarded a Fulbright Grant for two years study with Friedrich Wührer at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, Germany and a summer's study with Kurt Neumüller at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. From 1965 to 1971 he studied extensively with Frank Mannheimer in Duluth, Minnesota. Before joining the piano faculty at the University of Texas in the Fall of 1974, he taught piano at Michigan State University where he recorded numerous piano solo and chamber music recital programs for the National Educational Television. Mr. Renner is an active teacher, adjudicator, piano soloist and chamber musician with a special interest in playing piano four-hand recitals. With his colleague, Betty Mallard, he has given four-hand recitals and master classes throughout the United States including the Murray Dranoff International Symposium for Two-Piano and Four-Hand Performances in Miami, Florida. Recent Performances with Betty Mallard include Hong Kong Baptist University and Chinese University in Hong Kong and the Steinway Club in Nicosia, Cyprus. Mr. Renner has received teaching awards from the Austin District Music Teachers Association and the Texas Music Teachers Association. Many former students hold teaching positions at Music Schools, Colleges and Universities in the United States and abroad. Mr. Renner was also honored by the establishment of a Presidential Endowed Scholarship in Piano in his name by former University of Texas president, Lorene Rogers.

has been praised by the Washington Post for a performance that "met the highest standards," and for "spotless articulation" that "gave the whole program unusual polish and virtuoso marks." The New York Times stated that "he won the audience over for himself with exquisite performances—both commanding and full of character." He has performed in Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Tokyo's Bunka Kaikan, and the Schola Cantorum in Paris. As a young man, Mr. Rutman distinguished himself as a top prize winner in several international competitions including the Busoni, Kapell, Casadesus, Joanna Hodges, Concert Artist Guild, and a first prize for his performance of the Goldberg Variations at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and for Artistic Excellence, and from the Astral Foundation of Philadelphia. Among his recordings are two Mozart Piano Concerti with the Academy of London Orchestra, an all-Poulenc CD with Emmy-Award winning actor Tony Randall providing the narration in The Story of Babar the Little Elephant, and his all-Chopin release on the Pro Musica label. Mr. Rutman has authored articles for Piano Quarterly, The Piano Teacher, Clavier, and his 2016 book Stories, Images, and Magic from the Piano Literature was listed as #3 Hot New Release on Amazon. A native of San Francisco, Mr. Rutman had his formative training under the musical guidance of Aiko Onishi. He later graduated from the Eastman School of Music and the Peabody Conservatory, where he worked with Cécile Genhart, Ellen Mack, and Leon Fleisher. Mr. Rutman is Artist-in-Residence at the University of Central Arkansas, where his students have won top prizes in numerous competitions including the East-West Artist Auditions in New York City, the Clara Wells International Competition, and the MTNA National Competition. An amateur boxer by avocation, Neil Rutman is the coach for the University of Central Arkansas Boxing Team. He is also a volunteer Probation Officer and mentor for juvenile offenders in Faulkner County and was one of 30 Americans to be awarded the Martin Luther King-President Barack Obama Service Award for his work with at risk youth in his county.

is a former President of the American Matthay Association. She also serves as Professor of Music and Director of Performance at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, where she teaches piano and courses in European and American music, including African-American music and American musical theater. She holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music, Arizona State University, and The Catholic University of America, where her doctoral dissertation was about American art song in turn-of-the-century Boston. She is well-known for her performances and publications in American music, and has presented papers and lecture recitals at national meetings of the Sonneck Society for American Music, the College Music Society, and the American Matthay Association. Concert appearances include the Badia di Cava Music Festival in Italy, the Master Musicians Festival in Kentucky, the Sumner School Museum and St. Patrick's in the City in Washington, D.C., the Gardner Museum and the French Library in Boston, and various schools and universities in the United States. Her research interests are American art song, the concert tradition in African American music, and American opera and musical theater. A compact disc, Deep River: The Art Songs and Spirituals of Harry T. Burleigh, in collaboration with Oral Moses, bass, originally on Northeastern Records, has been reissued by Albany Records; and a new disc, Fi-yer! A Hundred Years of African-American Song, with tenor William Brown, was recently released by Albany. She is currently review editor of the College Music Society journal Symposium and membership secretary of the American Liszt Society.

is a frequent soloist and chamber musician who performs throughout the United States and abroad. She has been a featured soloist with the National Orchestras of Chile, Costa Rica, and the University of Dayton Orchestra, and presented solo recitals for the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Sigma Alpha Iota National Convention, Ohio Music Teachers Association and numerous university Artist Series. She has presented solo and lecture recitals for the American Matthay Association for Piano held at Arizona State University, Pennsylvania State University, Texas Wesleyan University and the University of Kansas. Jennifer received a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and Certificate in Piano Pedagogy from Carnegie Mellon University and began Doctoral studies in Piano Performance at Arizona State University. Her teachers include Donald Hageman, Eric Street, Enrique Graf and Caio Pagano. Additional studies took place in Vienna, Austria and at Belgais Center for the Arts (Portugal). She has worked with a diverse range of artists including Emanuel Ax, Maria Joao Pires, Earl Wild and Grammy award-winning composer Lucy Simon. Jennifer has taught for the prestigious Carnegie Mellon Preparatory School and as adjunct faculty for the University of Dayton and Cedarville University. She has served as past President of The Dayton Music Club, Chair of the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs, Vice-President of Programming for the Ohio Music Teachers Association Western District, and as Archivist and Editor of The Matthay News. She currently owns The Piano Preparatory School, serving more than four hundred families in Dayton, Ohio.

is a past President of the American Matthay Association. His biography of Matthay, England's Piano Sage: The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay, was published by Scarecrow Press in December of 2011, and the paperback and Kindle versions were published by the H. W. Marston Press in December of 2020. His highly acclaimed A Dictionary for the Modern Pianist was published by Rowman & Littlefield in November 2016. He has studied with Stewart Gordon, Donald Hageman, Frank Mannheimer, and Denise Lassimonne. He has concertized extensively throughout North America and in 1986 he performed the 24 preludes of Rachmaninoff in New York's Lincoln Center. He made his London debut in 1988. His numerous articles have appeared in such journals as the American Music Teacher, the Piano Quarterly, and International Piano, and in the summer 1993 issue of American Music he presented new research concerning musical figures active in post-Revolutionary Philadelphia. He is also a contributor to the Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the new edition of the Grove Dictionary of American Music, and his other articles include pieces for the American Musical Instrument Society Journal, Symposium (the journal of the College Music Society), the Piano Journal of the European Piano Teachers' Association, and Emeritus Voices, a journal published by Arizona State University. He has also recently annotated a series of CDs for APR commemorating Matthay's pupils including Harriet Cohen, Irene Scharrer, Myra Hess, Bartlett & Robertson, and an extensive collection of rare discs featuring Matthay's own recordings. For the Hyperion label, he has also annotated a highly praised disc of the solo works of Charles Griffes performed by Garrick Ohlsson, and he has annotated numerous discs commemorating historic pianists for for the Deutsche Grammophon and Decca labels, as well as two early collections devoted to Wilhelm Kempff: a set of electrical recordings for APR (fall 2021), and a 3-CD set of all the pianist's acoustical recordings for Marston Records (fall 2022). His own acclaimed recording of The Philadelphia Sonatas of Alexander Reinagle (c.1750-1809) was released on the Titanic label in 1998. A professor emeritus of music at Wittenberg University in Ohio, he has also taught numerous courses for Arizona State University, and presently serves as the Director of ASU's Emeritus College Academy for Continued Learning. He holds the B. Mus. and the M. Mus. degrees from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. In May of 2019, he was named an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in London. He maintains a studio in Tempe, Arizona, and his website is www.pianosage.net

has served as Vice-President of the American Matthay Association. Currently residing in New York City, he recently returned from Germany where he performed in, among other venues, Kurt Weill Zentrum in Dessau and the Lucas Cranach Hof in Wittenberg. As a solo recitalist, he made his European debut at Mariefred Kyrkan in Sweden in 1997, where he received a standing ovation and was hailed by the reviewer as "unequivocally one of the most brilliant pianists I have had the pleasure of hearing and reviewing!" Mr. Smith's debut recording of the Kurt Atterberg Concerto (a premiere recording) was released in September of 1999. He offered this work for his Swedish orchestral debut in October of 1998, with Maestro Arne Johansson conducting the Sofia Orchestra. Svenska Dagbladet described his performance as marked by a "sensitive ear, strong sense of style and fine musicianship . . . more than anyone could wish for." The performance, the concerto, and Mr. Smith were featured on SVT's Musikspegeln, which was broadcast throughout Sweden soon afterwards. Other European engagements have included Oslo and Paris. His 1999-2000 schedule featured orchestral appearances in England with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and with the Sofia Orchestra in Stockholm, in addition to recitals in London, Stockholm and Leipzig. In the United States he has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist at such venues as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Cleveland Museum's Distinguished Artist Series, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. In the 1999-2000 season he performed solo recitals in Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York. He has also performed the Schumann Concerto with Maestro Jean-Pierre Schmitt and the Lawyers' Orchestra in NYC. Mr. Smith's work as a solo artist has been described as "breathtakingly beautiful . . . . The dazzling, agile finger work left the audience in utter awe of Smith's technical skill and beauty of tone . . . . His quiet sincere and straight forward manner relies on an economy of movement and energy which allows him introspection into the core of the music." Dan Franklin Smith's website is www.danfranklinsmith.com.

received the Licentiate Performer’s Diploma in Piano (L.R.A.M.) from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her work with first-generation Matthay students includes extensive study with Denise Lassimonne in England and additional work with Frank Mannheimer in the United States. She earned the Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees (cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) in piano performance and the post-graduate Performer's Certificate in piano from the University of South Carolina, where her teachers included AMAP members W. John Williams and John Kenneth Adams. Miss Smith was also a student of the late Elizabeth Newell at Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina. Her experience as a performer in the United States has been varied, including appearances in California, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. She has also performed in England, Canada, and Eastern Europe. In June of 2012 she performed a lecture/recital on the music of Robert Schumann at the Fourth World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia, where she was the only pianist representing South Carolina and was one of just twenty specially invited pianists from the United States who participated in the conference with more than 100 international pianists. The conference was held at the Isidor Bajic Music School. As an avid promoter of historic architectural preservation, Miss Smith has been a featured piano soloist in several concerts with the string orchestra from the Charleston Symphony performing the Bach F minor Concerto, benefitting two of South Carolina’s landmarks—the Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg and the Bishopville Opera House. Her music history research includes a special interest in American music of the 1920s “Jazz Age." In June of 2010 she presented a lecture/recital in the Legacy Theater at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, where she performed transcriptions of popular standards as performed by legendary jazz pianist Art Tatum. A first-prize winner of the prestigious Clara Wells Piano Competition presented by the American Matthay Association for Piano, and a recipient of a Chattanooga Cotton Ball Fellowship for Advanced study in Music, Miss Smith has been a featured performer on the South Carolina Educational TV and Radio networks. She has recorded two CDs of classical piano music and received the “Woman of Achievement” in the area of Fine Arts presented by the South Carolina YWCA of the Upper Lowlands, Inc. In addition to her demand as a solo recitalist, she is a full-time music faculty member of the University of South Carolina Sumter. Jane Luther Smith is listed on the South Carolina Arts Commission Approved Performing Artist Roster. She is owner of the Jane Luther Smith Piano Studios in Sumter and is organist for the historic Church of the Ascension (Episcopal) in Hagood. Barry Snyder

is a former President of the American Matthay Association, and professor emeritus of piano at Pennsylvania State University. He has performed throughout the world, having recorded solo recitals for the French, German and Spanish national radios, Radio 4 Hong Kong, and America’s PBS Television. His recent projects include a comprehensive, acclaimed series of Beethoven recitals and compact discs called Piano Masterworks of Beethoven including all the 32 Sonatas and many other beloved works of the Beethoven repertoire. Recent concerto performances include Mozart’s Concerto No. 27 with the Penn’s Woods Festival Orchestra in 2023. Other recent performances include Beethoven presentations and master classes in Beijing and Zhengzhou, China. In 2015 he performed a lecture-recital at the London International Piano Symposium. His critically-acclaimed recitals included Piano Entente, a series of recent-music programs presented in New York and London. His repertoire of contemporary music features dozens of works of distinguished American, British and French composers of the most recent decades, including several African-Americans and women. His workshops have included lecture-recitals on the topics of technical and musical teachings of Tobias Matthay. He was the winner of teaching awards from the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association and from Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture. Steven Herbert Smith’s degrees include the DMA and M.Mus. from the Eastman School of Music, as well as the Artist’s Diploma from the Mozarteum of Salzburg, Austria. His artist teachers have included Cécile Genhart and Kurt Neumüller. More recently he worked in Vienna with the celebrated pianist Paul Badura-Skoda regarding aspects of the Beethoven repertoire. The recorded Piano Masterworks of Beethoven is available via the Amazon website, as a complete CD boxed set of all Smith’s public performances in the series. In the American Record Guide for January 2016, Alan Becker gave the set a comprehensive, rave review: “Above all, the music unfolds with an ease and naturalness that gets to the core of Beethoven’s argument. ….(It features) helpful interpretations … fully worthy of comparison with many of today’s outstanding performers. [In the Diabelli Variations, the] final fugue is one of the most impressive performances I have heard. The remaining variation sets are all delivered with stunning attention to contrast and brilliance. The Op. 51 Rondos and Op. 126 Bagatelles further enhance the desirability of the album. This is a set to place beside the others I have mentioned (Ashkenazy, Brautigam, Brendel, Gilels, Goode, Kempff, Schnabel).” Steven Herbert Smith’s recordings of over 90 works, including 18 by Beethoven, can also be heard here on YouTube. Steven Herbert Smith's website is www.stevenherbertsmith.com.

is an internationally acclaimed pianist and teacher, whose entry onto the international stage came after winning three major prizes at the 1966 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition: Silver Medal, Pan American Union Award and the Chamber Music Prize. Since then, Snyder has toured the world performing concerti, presenting solo collaborative recitals, and leading master classes. Snyder has performed with conductors such as Robert Shaw, Leopold Stokowski, David Zinman, Sixten Ehrling and Arthur Fiedler. His has appeared with such orchestras as the Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Krakow Radio Symphony , Brno Radio Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Toronto Chamber Orchestra, and the Aspen Summer festival Orchestra. A well-known collaborator, Snyder has appeared with artists such as Hermann Prey, Jan DeGaetani, Zvi Zeitlin, Ani Kavafian, Sylvia Rosenberg, Bonita Boyd, Steven Doane, and the Chilingirian and Cleveland Quartets. Many of these collaborations can be heard in Snyder’s substantial discography of over fifty-five recordings. Held in high esteem by the professional community, Snyder is a widely sought-after teacher. Since 1970, Snyder was Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and he is listed in the publication The Most Wanted Piano Teachers and has given master classes in the United States, Europe and Asia. As of 2018, Snyder became Professor Emeritus at Eastman and accepted an Adjunct Professor position at NYU. As a juror, Snyder has chaired the jury for the World International Piano Competition in Cincinnati and was a member of the jury for the Glasgow Young Artists Competition. Snyder is committed to performing 20th and 21st century repertoire, and has given world premieres of works by such composers as Sydney Hodkinson, Toshio Hosakawa and Augusta Read Thomas. Many compositions, such as those by Carter Pann and Verne Reynolds, have been written specifically for him. Barry Snyder studied solo piano with renowned teachers Wilbur Hollman, Vladimir Sokoloff, and Cecile Genhart and studied chamber music with John Celentano and Brooks Smith.

is a native of Turkey and she earned her bachelor's degree in piano performance from the Ankara State Conservatory, where she studied piano for a decade. Following her graduation, she worked as an accompanist at the same conservatory and taught piano at universities and various private institutions for several years. In 2009, she moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies in piano performance, obtaining a second master's degree in collaborative piano and later completing her doctoral degree in piano performance. As a recipient of numerous awards in the United States, Soylar was also inducted into prestigious national music honor societies, in recognition of her high academic and musical achievements. She has performed as a soloist and accompanist in several countries across Europe, Canada, and China, including notable venues such as the Verona Philharmonic Theatre in Italy, and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Soylar also served as a piano accompanist at Pittsburg State University, Pennsylvania State University and Azusa Pacific University, and has taught piano at numerous private institutions for many years. In October 2018, her book on Olivier Messiaen, a renowned twentieth-century French composer, was published by Wipf and Stock Publishers in Oregon. Titled Messiaen's Musical Language on the Holy Child, the book is available in many countries and has been added to the Performing Arts Research Collection of the New York Public Library and The Royal Library of the Netherlands. It is also accessible through the Hong Kong Academic Library Link, a union catalog for eight participating libraries in Hong Kong, as well as the College of Europe Library Link, with the College of Europe being the oldest postgraduate institute of European Studies.

is the current Past President of the American Matthay Association, and he has been described in The WholeNote as “an innovative musician and aggressive thinker with a gift for keyboard brilliance.” He has appeared as soloist in the concerti of Liszt with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City, Taneycomo Festival Orchestra, and Webster Symphony Orchestra, and he celebrated the composer’s bicentennial in 2011 with a series of performances of the complete Douze études d’exécution transcendante. In 2014, Susi advanced to the semifinals of the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition (Utrecht, The Netherlands) as one of two Americans selected worldwide to participate in this prestigious competition. He has a growing commitment to the American Liszt Society and has performed annually at their festivals since 2023. In 2026, he was featured at their opening gala concert with the University Singers of the University of Nebraska Lincoln in Liszt’s Via crucis. His debut as a published author appears in The Journal of the American Liszt Society, where he offers an interdisciplinary reading of Liszt’s Legend no. 1 by intersecting theoretical analysis with Catholic iconography.Dr. Susi’s research has been awarded grants from such organizations as the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, and Legacy Foundation for the Arts. These and other grants enabled him to travel, study, and perform music across Europe; the experiences of researching Beethoven in Bonn, Debussy in Paris, and Mozart in Vienna have been central to his development as a musician and to his cosmopolitan understanding of musical styles. Other noteworthy appearances abroad include recitals at the Cité universitaire de Paris and Casa de la música (Quito), two all-Liszt concerts for the Princess von Hohenzollern at her castle in Namedy, Germany, and concerto solos with the Wiener Residenz Orchester and Symphonieorchester der Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. He has presented his research internationally for conferences in Bogotá, Colombia and Bayreuth, Germany.Stateside, Dr. Susi’s career took off upon winning the 2015 National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) Young Artist Competition. Winners of this competition receive two years of management leading to performances, masterclasses, and lectures across the country. At the same time, Susi recorded and released his debut album, Scarlatti Now, to critical acclaim; in addition to international radio airplay, the disc was featured on the 2017 Critics’ Choice list of American Record Guide and was chosen as a 1st place winner of The American Prize in 2018. His second disc was released internationally in 2026 under the Naxos label and features the complete piano sonatas of Luis Humberto Salgado. Susi’s recent published work can be found in issues of American Music Teacher and the Proceedings of the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. His edition of solo piano music by John Alden Carpenter is published by TOMGEROUMUSIC.COM. Dr. Susi is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of South Carolina, and the current Artistic Director of the Southeastern Piano Festival. He previously taught piano and music theory at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN. He completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan, with previous studies at the University of Kansas and at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln as a two-time DAAD grantee. Primary teachers include Zena Ilyashov, Jack Winerock, Nina Tichman, and Arthur Greene. His website is www.nicholas-susi.com.

serves as Associate Professor of Music at Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, where he has taught since 1998. At Williams, he teaches all of the music theory and aural skills courses as well as music fundamentals, music appreciation, applied piano, and composition. He currently serves as president of the Delta Music Teachers Association of northeast Arkansas and president of the Schubert Music Club (affiliated with the Arkansas Federation of Music Clubs). With the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association (ASMTA), he currently serves as an elected board member, chair of the student composition competition, and co-chair of state auditions. In 2010 he was named Arkansas Music Teacher of the Year by ASMTA, and in 2011 he received certification as a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music by the Music Teachers National Association. From 2009-2011, Dr. Thompson served as president of the south central chapter (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas) of the College Music Society. He received a B.M. in piano from the University of Kansas, an M.A. in music from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and a Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His principal piano teachers are Patricia M. Thompson, Karen Halverhout, Richard Reber, Richard Angeletti, John McIntyre, Carroll Chilton, and Howard Karp.

thrives on the versatility of her musical career. As a performing pianist, chamber musician, piano pedagogue, and entrepreneurial leader, she embraces every opportunity to share her passion for music. She currently serves as an assistant professor of practice in piano pedagogy at the University of Kansas and an adjunct piano professor at Ottawa University. She studied with Dr. Scott McBride Smith at the University of Kansas and graduated in 2019 with honors for her doctoral dissertation, Applying the Rotation Principle to Avoid Injury in Piano Practice. Wang's research centers on scientific and healthy approaches to piano technique. This focus was shaped by her personal experience recovering from a left-hand injury in 2013, which inspired her lifelong commitment to helping injured musicians return to performance. Her scholarly work dates back to her master's studies at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, where she collaborated with medical researchers on the project How Pianists Coexist with Tenosynovitis, recognized as an honored program at the conservatory and supported by national research funding. In 2023, she was invited to write a front-page article in Music Weekly, one of China's leading music publications. In recent years, Wang has been highly active in academic leadership and pedagogy. In 2025, she presented at the national conference of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP). In 2024, she led a workshop on injury prevention at Washburn University and presented at the 66th Matthay Piano Festival. Since 2022, she has frequently served as an adjudicator for competitions including MMTA, KMTA, KSHSA, and KCMTA. Prior to her hand injury, Wang won numerous prizes in major international and national competitions. In 2011, she received First Prize in the Professional Division of the Zhong-Sin International Music Competition in Singapore; her interpretation of Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 109, was praised for its "fluid, seamless touch." Between 2008 and 2012, she earned multiple provincial First Prizes at China's Yangtze River National Piano Competition and the Blüthner International Piano Competition. As a performer, she has appeared in China, the United States, Singapore, Italy, and Israel in solo, chamber, and concerto settings, with interests ranging from Baroque harpsichord performance to contemporary premieres. A visionary leader in piano education, she founded the International Piano Professionals Association (IPPA) in 2019, which now connects thousands of young pianists and educators across more than thirty countries through competitions, festivals, conferences, and online programs. At heart an idealist, she finds her greatest fulfillment in inspiring students and shaping the future of piano pedagogy.

is a distinguished pianist, educator, and arts administrator who earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Kansas. She also holds a Graduate Professional Diploma from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, a Master of Music from Temple University, and a Bachelor of Music from the Tianjin Conservatory of Music. An accomplished performer, Dr. Wang has appeared at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, the Curtis Theatre, and the ICMA Music Festival at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Following her Carnegie Hall concert in October 2025, she will participate in a post-concert conference at Columbia University and perform in an ethnomusicology concert at Cornell University, where she also serves as an Associate Editor of the Analytical Approaches to World Music (AAWM) Journal. A passionate scholar, Dr. Wang has presented at national and international academic conferences such as the MTNA National Conference, the Matthay Piano Festival, and research forums associated with the AAWM Conference, sharing her work on piano pedagogy and performance practice. In May 2025, she was accepted as a Good Standing Member of the American Matthay Association (AMA), further affirming her active engagement in the piano pedagogy community. As a dedicated educator, Dr. Wang directs her own piano studio in California, where she develops curricula for exam preparation, group instruction, and mentorship for young teachers. She is also recognized as a Steinway & Sons Teacher and Educational Partner. Her leadership extends to the nonprofit sector. She serves as Vice President of the International Classical Music Alliance (ICMA) and is the Founder and CEO of Concert Star Organization, through which she curates global artistic projects including the Clarity Recital in Los Angeles and the Carnegie Hall International Award Ceremony. Through her integrated work in performance, pedagogy, research, and arts leadership, Dr. Yaqi Wang continues to inspire the next generation of musicians while expanding the global reach of classical music.

is a concert pianist, teacher and a member of the piano faculty at Kennesaw State University. Mr. Watkins made his solo recital debut in New York at Carnegie Recital Hall in May 1986. His students have received recognition on state, national and international levels. Mr. Watkins has released three commercial recordings on the ACA Digital label. He has also served on the summer artist faculty of the Eastern Music Festival Mr. Watkins is certified as a master teacher by the Music Teachers National Association. He was President of the American Matthay Association 1994-1998, and was president of Georgia Music Teachers Association from 1994-1996. Mr. Watkins is an international Steinway Artist. Mr. Watkins is active as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist and collaborative performer with an unusually varied repertoire at his command. He has performed on the national convention programs of the Music Teachers National Association (Little Rock, Nashville, Salt Lake City), the American Matthay Association (Dayton Art Institute, San Jose State University, Penn State University), the American Liszt Society, the College Music Society (St. Louis, Toronto). and the International Conference on the Arts and Humanities in Honolulu. He has performed with the Atlanta Virtuosi Chamber Ensemble in and around his home base of Atlanta and has made appearances with them in such prestigious places as the University of Mexico and the North American Cultural Institute in Mexico City. He has appeared as concerto soloist with many regional orchestras, including the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, Cobb Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Wind Symphony and DeKalb Symphony Orchestra. He has performed solo recitals throughout the United States, from California to Massachusetts, under the auspices of many colleges, universities and community concert series. He also performed regularly with ‘cellist Roger Drinkall; the duo toured throughout the Midwest and South under the auspices of Allied Concert Services. Mr. Watkins has accompanied Metropolitan Opera sopranos Irene Jordan, Linda Zoghby and Patricia Craig in recital.

has served on the Board of the American Matthay Association for Piano. He has been hailed by the Boston Globe as a “pianist of skill and fantasy,” and is a widely acclaimed soloist and chamber musician, having performed throughout the United States and at international venues in Europe, Japan, and Africa. He has appeared in such diverse venues as Stadthaus Winterthur, Switzerland, Hanjo Bohlke Aula, Namibia, the utopian arts community, Arcosanti, and the 13th century Kamakura Buddhist temple, Enkaguji. He made his New York Carnegie Hall debut with the St. Florian Piano Trio, an ensemble that has performed the complete trios of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart at one of Tokyo’s most prestigious recital halls, Bunkakaikan. His performances have been broadcast on NHK Television, Japan, Namibian National Radio, KUSC and KPFK in Los Angeles, and WGMS Washington D.C. Dr. Young is a fellowship recipient to the Tanglewood Music Center, the Music Academy of the West, the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Mozarteum, Salzburg, and is an alumnus of University of the Pacific (BM), Peabody Conservatory (MM) and the University of Southern California (DMA). His principal mentors are Ann Schein, Jerome Lowenthal, Leon Fleisher and Gwendolyn Koldofsky. He has given master classes at the Shanghai Conservatory, in high schools and colleges in Taiwan and at universities in California and Oklahoma. He is Co-Chair of Keyboard Studies at Pasadena City College and has taught at Pomona College, Biola University Conservatory of Music, and UC Irvine.

is a formidable keyboard artist with a rare mastery of the piano, organ, and carillon, who has been hailed as "a firecracker at the console." Her international footprint spans China, Italy, and the United States, with solo and collaborative performances on major stages in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston. An active performer and dedicated advocate for new music, she has given world premieres for composers Eve Beglarian and Lori Laitman. She has appeared as a featured artist at the "SHE" Festival and New Music on the Point, and formerly served as Creative Advisor for the Asian Classical Music Initiative. As an organist, Dr. Yu frequently engages in specialized performance projects. Her notable appearances include the French Organ Festival and the Bach in Bales conference at the University of Kansas. Her commitment to historical repertoire is further highlighted by an extensive Bach project completed during her graduate studies, as well as her role as a featured soloist for the Reuter Organ Company's 105th Anniversary. An in-demand collaborator, Dr. Yu works regularly with Opera Italia in Los Angeles. She is also a core member of the Almost Quintet, a chamber ensemble that has performed in New York and Los Angeles and completed a successful concert tour across Kansas. A laureate of competitions in Charleston and Italy, Dr. Yu holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano and a Master of Music in Church Music (Organ) from the University of Kansas. She earned a Master of Music from the University of Michigan with a double major in Piano and Chamber Music, having studied under luminaries including Olivier Latry, Jack Winerock, and Arthur Greene.

is a young British pianist and composer. And now she is UCL Choir Conductor. She holds Master's degrees in Music Performance Science and Music Education, from the Royal College of Music and the University of Southampton respectively. She studied under professor George Waddell and Professor Rosie Perkins at the Royal College of Music. She has also studied with Professor Nigel Clayton with piano. Yu has held concerts in Shanghai, Xi'an, Hefei, Chengdu, London, Oxford and Manchester. She is the founder of the AI Music Interaction Design Community and "Half lecture half concert". She is committed to creating a platform that allows music scholars, musicians and music lovers from around the world to freely exchange ideas and communicate. In the summer of 2025, she will be bringing together musicians, music scholars and music lovers from the Half lecture half concert at the Julian Jacobson music education conference, the Red Cedar Society academic conference, the IPPA international piano teaching method conference and the MTTA piano teaching association. She will now be bringing together musicians, music scholars and music lovers from the Rhythm and Practice and AI Music Interaction community to explore new potential and possibilities in music across cultures and disciplines.

is a former treasurer of the American Matthay Association for Piano and is an active performer both as soloist and collaborator. A student of Cécile Staub Genhart and Frank Mannheimer, Mrs. Zale attended the Eastman School of Music and was awarded Bachelor of Music with Distinction and Master of Music degrees in performance and pedagogy. While at Eastman, she performed as a soloist with the Eastman Rochester Orchestra, was awarded a graduate assistantship and taught class piano. After several decades of maintaining a large independent piano studio in Rochester, New York, Mrs. Zale earned a Master of Science degree in counseling from the University of Rochester and served as a school counselor and administrator for eighteen years. At the time of her retirement in 2000, she was the Director of Counseling responsible for the K-12 School Counselor program in the Churchville-Chili School District. Mrs. Zale has presented three lecture/performances at the annual Matthay Festivals, most recently at the 2014 Festival at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. Texas. Mrs. Zale is also a member of Mu Phi Epsilon, International Professional Music Fraternity and was a featured soloist at the 2008 Mu Phi Epsilon International Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. In 2011, she was awarded the Orah Ashley Lamke Distinguished Alumna Award by the fraternity. As a District Director, she mentors the Mu Phi Epsilon collegiate chapters at the Eastman School of Music, Ithaca College, and SUNY Binghamton.