To learn more about Dan Willett and Natalia Bolshakova:Dan Willett ( Bolshakova (

 

Dr. Curtis Pavey is a pianist, harpsichordist, and educator serving as the Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Performance at the University of Missouri. Prior to his appointment at MU, Pavey served on the faculties of the University of Cincinnati and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Passionate about keyboard works from the 16th to the 21st centuries, he feels equally at home performing or teaching from the piano or the harpsichord. Dr. Pavey has presented talks at many prominent conferences including the Music Teachers National Association National Conference, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the Piano Pedagogy Collegiate Symposium, and the Ohio/Kentucky Music Teachers Association Conference. At NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference, Pavey presented a lecture recital on the music of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, and a presentation on historic improvisation titled "Make It Your Own: Improvising in Baroque Styles." In July 2023, he was invited to present a live webinar for MTNA titled "Reimagining the Baroque: Reflections from Performance Practice," which is archived on the MTNA website. The Frances Clark Center's From the Artist Bench series includes his video teaching demonstration and performance tips for Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre's Suite in A Minor; another video on Ravel's Prelude in A Minor is forthcoming on their Inspiring Artistry series. At the Frances Clark Center, Dr. Pavey serves as Manager of Online Publications, assisting with online courses, social media, and the Piano Inspires Discovery Page. He also serves as manager of the Journal of Piano Research and a digital copy editor for Piano Magazine. His research focuses include Baroque piano pedagogy, historic improvisation, early French music, the music of Maurice Ravel, music by Cuban composers, and composers from underrepresented backgrounds in the classical music field. As a pianist, Pavey engages audiences with intellectual and thoughtful interpretations, striving to make meaningful connections between repertoire old and new. Pavey has performed as a soloist in the Oklahoma Mozart Festival, the Edward Auer Summer Piano Workshop (EASPW), the Great Lakes Chamber Festival, Montreal's Kin Experience, and the Madison Performing Arts Foundation. In Cincinnati, he gave the world premiere performance of composer Grace Choi's Voyage, a work for solo piano. In August 2021, Pavey was named a finalist in the 2021 Beardsley Cup Piano Prize Competition. He has a special interest in the music of Maurice Ravel and is currently working to learn his complete piano music. In 2020, he received a Teacher Enrichment Grant from the Music Teachers National Association that supported private piano lessons on Ravel's piano music with Canadian pianist and Ravel specialist, André Laplante. In 2016, Pavey won the EASPW Chamber Music Competition and performed Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 with guest artists including Sarah Kapustin, Godfried Hoogeveen, and Marcus Thompson. The following year, he won the EASPW Solo Piano Competition. He has performed in master classes for renowned pianists Julian Martin, Emile Naoumoff, Su Bin, Bruce Brubaker, Olga Kern, and Malcolm Bilson, and worked privately with Jerome Lowenthal, Peter Bithell, Jon Nakamatsu, Crystal Lee, and Amy Yang. In 2021, Pavey was recognized as a member of Diapason Magazine's "20 Under 30 – Class of 2021," recognizing rising stars in the organ and harpsichord field. The same year, he was a semifinalist in the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition. In 2022, he was selected to serve as a member of Early Music America's Emerging Professional Leadership Council, helping to spread awareness and passion for early music in North America. Pavey was acclaimed by Peter Jacobi of the Herald Times, who described him as "an artist of considerable finish and even more promise" after his opening debut recital in the Bloomington Early Music Festival as an "Emerging Artist." In October 2017 and January 2018, he performed Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055 with the IU Baroque Orchestra. As a continuo player, Pavey has performed in the Bloomington Early Music Festival and the Oregon Bach Festivals. He has coached with many distinguished early music specialists including Elisabeth Wright, Jacques Ogg, Wilbert Hazlezet, Alexander Weimann, John Butt, Debra Nagy, Dana Marsh, Stanley Ritchie, Richard Egarr, and Bruce Dickey. Dr. Pavey regularly collaborates in a number of ensemble settings. He was chosen to perform amongst CCM faculty pianists James Tocco and Dr. Dror Biran in Stravinsky's Les Noces. With pianist Helena Hyesoo Kim, he performed a four-hands piano recital in Madison, Indiana at the Madison Performing Arts Foundation Series, and at the Kin Experience in Montreal, Quebec. In 2019, Pavey performed works of Handel as well as Schubert's complete Die Winterreise, D. 911 with bass-baritone Daren Small. Working with contemporary composer Hojin Lee, he performed her Four Miniatures for Flute and Piano (2009) in a concert of the composer's works. Pavey received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Cincinnati where he studied with Professor James Tocco. He completed a cognate in harpsichord under the tutelage of Dr. Michael Unger and a cognate in piano pedagogy under the joint direction of Dr. Michelle Conda and Dr. Andy Villemez. His doctoral project is a textbook titled An Introduction to Early Music and the Harpsichord, which was used at the University of Cincinnati in the Fall 2022 semester. Prior to his studies in Cincinnati, he studied at Indiana University where he graduated from the Bachelor of Music – Piano Performance and Master of Music – Piano Performance and Early Music Harpsichord. During his time at IU, he worked with Professors Edward Auer, Elisabeth Wright, Lee Phillips, and Evelyne Brancart.

Pianist Peter Miyamoto ( has enjoyed a brilliant international career, performing to great acclaim in recital and as soloist in Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, China, and Japan, and in major US cities such as Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. In 1990, Miyamoto was named the first Gilmore Young Artist. He won numerous other competitions, including the American Pianist Association National Fellowship Competition, the D'Angelo Competition, the San Francisco Symphony Competition and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Competition, and was a top-prize winner in the National Chopin Piano Competition. Peter Miyamoto holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale University School of Music, Michigan State University, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. His teachers included Maria Curcio-Diamand, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Marek Jablonski, Aube Tzerko, and Ralph Votapek, as well as Szymon Goldberg, Felix Galimir and Lorand Fenyves for chamber music. A dedicated chamber musician, he has collaborated with such musician as Charles Castleman, Victor Danchenko, Joel Krosnick, Lara St. John, Anthony McGill, Amit Peled, David Shifrin, Allan Vogel, singer Lucy Shelton, and members of the Juilliard, Borromeo and Pacific String Quartets. He is the Executive Director of the Plowman Chamber Music Competition. Currently Middlebush Chair of Piano at the University of Missouri, where he was also named 2021 Professor of the Year, Peter Miyamoto formerly taught at Michigan State University, and the California Institute of the Arts. He has presented lectures and master classes through the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard Festival and the Amadeus Piano Festival, at numerous music institutions including the Colburn School, Interlochen Academy of the Arts, Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Michigan among many others, as well as internationally in Canada, Chinga, Greece, Japan and Serbia. From 2003-2015 he served as head of the piano faculty at the New York Summer Music Festival and has served on the piano faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music's Young Artist Summer Program and the Curtis Mentor Network Program in Philadelphia. Miyamoto's six solo CDs, available on the Blue-Griffin label, have received excellent reviews in periodicals such as Gramophone, International Record Review, Fanfare, and American Record Guide and were recognized by the American Prize. He has also recorded a CD with violinist Julie Rosenfeld of world-premieres of six works for violin and piano on the Albany label, produced by GRAMMY Award winner Judith Sherman.

Described as "impressively solid" by the Dallas Morning News, Amanda Collins has quickly become a highly sought after performer and educator nationally and abroad. Ms. Collins is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Preparatory (certificate), Pennsylvania State University (BM) and Southern Methodist University (MM). She has studied under the tutelage of some of the finest living horn players, including Gregory Hustis, Lisa Bontrager, Larry Williams, Eli Epstein and Richard Deane. Ms. Collins is currently third horn with the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra and second horn with the American Studio Orchestra. In 2017, Ms. Collins was appointed Principal horn of the Gateways Festival Orchestra, an ensemble featuring professional musicians of African descent. She has performed with several notable ensembles including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Opera Memphis, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Brass Quintet. Ms. Collins recently made her UK debut performing as principal horn with the Chineke! Orchestra on their 2019 UK tour. A sought after freelancer nationally, she regularly performs for a variety of musical theaters, gospel and R&B/soul ensembles, pops ensembles and opera companies. Performances include Mary Poppins- Hershey Theater, Titanic- Signature Theater, various productions with the Soulful Symphony, Opera NOVA and the Washington Opera Society. Ms. Collins appears regularly as a soloist and guest artist. A dedicated chamber musician, she is a member of the Missouri Quintet and the University of Missouri Faculty Brass Quintet. Ms. Collins was a featured artist in 2017 and 2018 on the national radio show, Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child, broadcasted by American Public Media, performing Francis Poulenc's Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet, FP 100 with members of the Gateways Music Festival. Additionally, she performed with the Gateways Brass Collective on Backstage Pass with Julia Figeras on WXXI, NPR in January of 2019 in Rochester, NY. Ms. Collins is a passionate educator and is currently Assistant Teaching Professor of French Horn at the University of Missouri. Formerly, she was Adjunct Professor of French Horn at Montgomery College and the University of the District of Columbia. She also served as Instructor of French Horn at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Preparatory and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. In addition to private instruction, Ms. Collins has taught classes in music theory, chamber music and ensemble playing. A strong supporter of diversity and inclusion in the arts, many of Ms. Collins' students hail from under-served and underrepresented communities. Ms. Collins served on faculty at the Prizm International Chamber Music Festival in 2018 where she worked with students of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition to performing and teaching, Ms. Collins regularly attends events and conferences, the focus of which is on performing and teaching the French horn, promoting and creating a network of diverse musicians, artists and instructors, and administrative networking and conversations. In 2017 and 2018, she was selected as a fellow at the Sphinx Connect conference in Detroit, MI. In 2019, Ms. Collins was interviewed on Backstage with Lee Thomas on Detroit Public Television during the 2019 Sphinx Competition. Ms. Collins is routinely a guest speaker at symposiums and events, discussing a wide range of topics including diversity and inclusion in the arts, college auditioning technique, college career management and entrepreneurship for college students and graduates. Ms. Collins is affiliated with the American Federation of Musicians and the International Horn Society. She currently plays a Yamaha 867 French horn and Laskey 75G gold plate mouthpiece.

To learn more about the faculty featured in this recital:Peter Miyamoto ( Pavey ( Rosenfeld (