About Keyboard Area
The Michael and Anne Greenwood School of Music at OSU offers a comprehensive program for undergraduate and graduate students. Fully accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, the School offers both the Bachelor of Music as a professional degree and the Bachelor of Arts as a degree in liberal education. Students enrolled in a Bachelor of Music program focus on Performance or Music Education. Others may enroll in a Bachelor of Science in Music Industry degree. Graduate students can earn a Master of Music in Performance.
OSU places primary emphasis upon the individual, requiring the highest musical standards and supporting each student in developing to his or her fullest potential. Students study in individual lessons with superbly qualified faculty of national and international renown. The perspective our artist-teachers bring to the educational and artistic process is mature and widely experienced.
Oklahoma State University completed the new, $40 million McKnight Performing Arts Center in the fall of 2019, and groundbreaking took place recently for our new $20 million Greenwood School of Music building as well. That facility opened in spring 2021.
In 2008 the OSU Greenwood School of Music, through the purchase of thirty new Steinway pianos, became one of just over 150 All-Steinway Schools in the world. This ensures that pianists at OSU perform and practice only on the finest instruments in the world. The Seretean Center for the Performing Arts includes a Concert Hall seating nearly 900, rehearsal halls and faculty studios, classrooms with state-of-the-art audio and video equipment, a computer-equipped multi-media lab, and numerous practice rooms. The facilities and equipment include two new New York Steinway concert grands in the Concert Hall, two double-manual harpsichords (a Kingston and a Vaughn), two mechanical-action pipe organs (built by Wilhelm and Bigelow), a Klop portative organ, an electro-pneumatic Kilgen pipe organ, and an electronic piano lab.
Many piano majors have the opportunity to perform in master classes for outstanding guest artists each year. World class pianists and pedagogues who have presented guest artist recitals and/or master classes at OSU include Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio, Professors of Piano at the Juilliard School; Barry Snyder, Alexander Kobrin and Douglas Humpherys of the Eastman School of Music; Grammy-winning modern music champion Ursula Oppens; Anton Nel of the University of Texas at Austin and Anne Epperson, Chair of the Collaborative Piano program at Indiana University; Robert Weirich of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory; international touring virtuoso Ning An; Leon Bates; The Five Browns; Read Gainsford of Florida State University; James Giles of Northwestern University; Anthony Padilla of the Lawrence University Conservatory; Elvia Puccinelli, Professor of Vocal Coaching and Accompanying at the University of North Texas; Fred Karpoff of Syracuse University; Jennifer Hayghe of the University of Colorado; and many others.
One of OSU’s former piano major students, Chul Hyung (Tony) Cho, joined the faculty of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in 2015 as an opera coach. Tony previously worked at the Juilliard School as an Associate Opera Coach, then coached operas at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music and at Chapman University outside Los Angeles. Former student Christopher Reed holds a position as Vocal/Opera Coach at Colorado State University. Christopher is pursuing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Collaborative Piano at the Eastman School, having completed his Master’s degree there as well. Other students have been accepted into graduate piano degree programs at Eastman, the Universities of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Southern California, Kansas, Missouri-Kansas City, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. They have had success in numerous competitions, winning Oklahoma MTA Collegiate competitions (including first place winners in 2018, 2016, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2006, 2005, and 2003, and numerous runners-up) and state wins in the MTNA Collegiate Artist competitions (including a national finalist in the String Chamber Music category in 2013), MTNA Senior Artist winners in 2018, 2010 and 2009, and MTNA Junior Artist winners in 2016 and 2015.
Keyboard students develop their skills in a variety of ways and thus grow into more fully capable musicians. Weekly lessons are complemented by weekly studio classes, wherein keyboard majors of each applied teacher play for one other and receive valuable input, thus creating an environment of cooperation and shared learning experiences. Students also perform on student recitals as soloists and collaborators with singers and instrumentalists. Choral and instrumental ensembles provide opportunities for pianists to be featured with larger performing groups. They may also enter the annual Concerto Competition sponsored by the OSU Symphony Orchestra, which has featured winning pianists in various concerti. Performing opportunities culminate, in most students’ minds, in solo recitals presented as degree requirements (junior, senior and master’s degree recitals) or as self-motivated activities (non-degree recitals, duo-piano recitals, or off-campus recitals).
Keyboard majors are active in various professional organizations and hold student membership in the Music Teachers National Association (with a local branch), College Music Educators National Conference, and several other national musical organizations with student chapters at OSU. Students engage in supervised teaching in pedagogy classes, and a number of students also maintain private studios. Some hold salaried positions as church musicians.
The keyboard faculty welcomes the opportunity to discuss the options and opportunities awaiting you at Oklahoma State University.