Dr. Catherine Garner, Coordinator of Keyboard Activities, Collaborative Piano, Class Piano at Appalachian State University
This event is free and open to the public. Registration is requested.
Join us for an incredible evening of classical piano music performed by Dr. Catherine Garner of App State’s Hayes School of Music. The program will consist of works by underrepresented composers including women, Latin Americans, and African Americans.
This is an outreach event for the Puerto Rico Center for Collaborative Piano Summer Music Festival. Donations will be accepted for the festival following the performance.
About the artist:
A collaborative pianist and assistant professor on faculty at Appalachian State University, Dr. Garner received a Doctorate in collaborative arts and chamber music under the direction of Dr. Jean Barr from the Eastman School of Music. She received a Masters of music degree in vocal accompanying and coaching from Florida State University and a Bachelor of music in piano performance at Louisiana State University.
Dr. Garner has performed as a soloist with the Appalachian State University Symphony Orchestra, the Louisiana State University Orchestra, the Monroe (La.) Symphony Orchestra, the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the Tallahassee Ballet, and the Big Bend Orchestra. She was a staff pianist at the American Institute for Musical Studies summer program in Graz, Austria as well as a participant at the Summer Academy in Nice, France with Dalton Baldwin. She was on staff as a coach for the opera festival, VIMA, for opera, German Liederabend, and Italian Art Song performances for the summer festival, part of the
VARNA summer opera festival in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She participated in both the New Music@ECU Festival and the Festival of New Music at Florida State University and was the official pianist at the East Carolina University Brass Festival and Flute Symposium. Dr. Garner was a featured performer at the Pershing’s Own Tuba/ Euphonium Conference in Washington DC, SERTEC at NC School of the Arts, NERTEC in Ithaca, NY with Tom McCaslin, and NWERTEC in Lexington, KY with Dr.vJarrod Williams. In summer 2021 Dr. Garner placed second in the International Collaborative competition of the Puerto Rico Center for Collaborative Piano where she now serves as a member of the artistic board for the summer festival in San Gérman, Puerto Rico. She has championed and premiered new works at both the International Trumpet Guild Conference and the International Trombone Festival by composer Dr. Mark Richardson.
Dr. Garner has performed as a collaborative pianist with such groups as The New Music Collective in Charleston, the Coastal Winds, the Greenville Choral Society, and with various soloists, such as Aaron Goldman, assistant principal flutist of the National Symphony, Collin Williams, Associate Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic, and tuba soloist Øystien Baadsvik. She performs regularly with soprano Serena Hill-Laroche, member of the voice faculty at University of South Carolina. In 2018 she was the official pianist for the competitions, both high school and collegiate level for the Southern Regional Music Teachers National Association. Dr. Garner is also the founder of Music on a WIM (Women’s Initiative Music Series), a concert series that featured compositions by women, performed in high traffic areas around the university. She continues to champion works by underrepresented composers, and recently was awarded a grant from ABIDE organizing and performing on a lecture recital of music by African American women composers along with Nicole Franklin, soprano, and Lenora Helms Hammonds, guest lecturer. Dr. Garner was asked to be a participant on a BIG READS grant through the ECU Department of English where she organized and led a lecture recital of music by First Nations Composers
and Poets, premiering a work for prepared piano by composer Dawn Avery. She has also been a participant in master classes with Marilyn Horne, William Bolcom, Richard Hundley, Jànos Starker and
John Wustman among others.
Dr. Garner has three published recordings: “Monuments,” “21st Century Flute Sonatas,” and “Saloons, Salons, and Salutations,” a celebration of female composers (Albany Records) with Dr. Stephen Ivany, trombone,
Dr. Tabatha Easley, flute, and Dr. Serena Hill-LaRoche. Along with her active performing career she is the area coordinator of the keyboard department and the Director of the Collaborative Piano at Appalachian
State University.
About the Puerto Rico Center for Collaborative Piano
The aim of the Puerto Rico Center for Collaborative Piano is to provide a high quality, affordable, bi-lingual, international summer music festival for pianists desiring to enhance their collaborative skills. PRCCP seeks to advance historically excluded musical voices through our leadership, repertoire selections, workshop topics, and location. All concerts are free of charge to the local community in San Germán, Puerto Rico.
The festival is open to undergraduate, graduate, amateur, and professional pianists.