About Us

The Collaborative Piano Institute was created by and for collaborative pianists!

And now, we are a family of summer music programs: the Vocal Academy, the Collaborative Strings Institute, the Bassoon Intensive, and the Composition Intensive!

OUR MISSION

Since there wasn’t a single summer program in the United States that was devoted exclusively to this highly specialized field, we created the Collaborative Piano Institute at Louisiana State University to put the spotlight on the needs of the next generation of inspiring collaborative pianists. The goal of the program is to further encourage the passion for partnership by providing guidance, rare insider’s information, and the support of distinguished, as well as emerging artists in the field.

Within the past twenty years, more and more schools throughout the country began offering a higher education degree in Collaborative Piano, but many of them focus on developing only a particular aspect of the musical partnership: strong instrumental ensemble skills, or skills needed for opera rehearsals, or art song and vocal coaching, or ballet repertoire. It is often difficult for young pianists to pinpoint a program that encourages and delves into all the various aspects of the collaborative piano field. 

Summer music training programs often need pianists for opera, choir, ballet productions, and general accompanying, and many offer repertoire classes, in addition to experience or exposure in high stakes events. But anyone who has ever been thrown in a situation for which they’re not prepared can relate to the stress and disappointment a young pianist can experience when not given specific instruction or individual attention, while being expected to deliver polished, professional work.  

Seeing the need for a program that supplies the knowledge required, we build a three-week long summer festival that has taken place every June since 2017. Having spent three lovely summers at the Shattuck – St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minnesota, and the excruciating and exhilarating June of 2020 completely online, we are proud to be hosted by Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Since 2020 we have created a number of partner programs for singers, instrumentalists, and composers! In 2020 we created the Vocal Academy to prepare singers to become equal creative partners in the music process by fostering curiosity, action, and engagement to produce a fulfilling, successful musical partnership whether in song, chamber music, or operatic settings.  In 2021 we created the Collaborative Strings Institute, a program for string players that focuses on chamber music with piano, as well as orchestral auditions, and in 2022 the Bassoon Intensive, a week-long program for college-age bassoonists interested in collaboration. Finally, in 2023 we introduced the Composition intensive, a fantastic opportunity for young composers to collaborate with singers, pianists and instrumentalists, and create brand new world premieres!

Through the years we have proudly welcomed legendary performers and pedagogues alongside emerging professionals to our faculty roster: 

  • Anne Epperson (Director of the Collaborative Piano Program at Indiana University)
  • Rita Sloan (Artist faculty and Founder of the Collaborative Piano Program, Aspen Music Festival; Director of Collaborative Piano, University of Maryland)
  • Martin Katz (Earl V. Moore Collegiate Professor in Music at the University of Michigan; SongFest, Merola Opera Program, Music Academy of the West)
  • Jonathan Feldman (Professor of Collaborative Piano, the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory; Music Academy of the West)
  • Warren Jones (Professor of Collaborative Piano, Manhattan School of Music; Music Academy of the West, SongFest)
  • Kathleen Kelly (Associate Professor at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music; former Director of Musical Studies at the Vienna Staatsoper; former Head of Music/Music Director at Houston Grand Opera)
  • Howard Watkins (Assistant Conductor at the MET; Music Coach at the Juilliard School; currently Presidential Visiting Fellow at Yale)
  • Marie-France Lefebvre (Professor of Opera/Voice Coaching, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music; guest pianist, coach and conductor Cincinnati Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Wolf Trap, Santa Fe Opera)
  • Timothy Lovelace (Professor of Collaborative Piano and Coaching, University of Minnesota; Ravinia Music Festival)
  • Elena Abend (Professor of Piano, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
  • Christopher Turbessi (Lecturer at Shepherd School of Music, Rice University; freelance vocal coach and conductor; Wolftrap Opera Program)
  • Elvia Puccinelli (Professor of Collaborative Piano and Vocal Coaching at University of North Texas School of Music; Founder and President of the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society and CollabFest; OperaWorks, Fall Island, Opera Lucca)
  • Colette Valentine (Associate Professor Of Collaborative Piano at Butler School of Music, UT Austin)
  • Matthew Brower (Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano, Washington College; Director of the Collaborative Piano Program, University of Delaware’s (UD); Master Players Summer Festival)
  • Elena Lacheva (Professional in Residence, Louisiana State University)
  • Ana Maria Otamendi (Director of Collaborative Piano, Louisiana State University)

We continue to offer lectures, classes, and discussion groups in: 

  • Musical style and interpretation
  • Audition preparation for graduate school, summer festivals, and Young Artist Programs
  • Vocal coaching and score preparation
  • Language and diction
  • Setting up a coaching studio and career building tips
  • Technique issues
  • Time management
  • Recital programming
  • Working with and as a conductor
  • Opportunity to record prescreening video and audio
  • for more information on our Curriculum, click here! 

BUT, WHAT IS A COLLABORATIVE PIANIST?

Any pianist who is not playing alone (or solo) is a collaborative pianist. We perform with orchestras, in piano trios and quartets, in recitals with singers, in four-hand or two-piano duos, and so much more! Also, that amazing Carmen production that you just saw wouldn’t have been possible without the rehearsal pianists and the vocal coaches who prepared the singers. A collaborative pianist played the celesta for the Nutcracker your whole family attended, and he or she played for all the dance rehearsals, too. We also teach other pianists, we serve as staff accompanists, and many of us become conductors!

Think of collaborative pianists as music stem cells that develop into many different tissues. The great pianists Sviatoslav Richter started his career as a ballet accompanist and continued to play with various partners throughout his life. Patrick Summers, the Artistic Director of Houston Grand Opera, was first a collaborative pianist and vocal coach. When Renee Fleming gives a recital, her partner is a collaborative pianist.

What makes us truly special, though, is that being a collaborative pianist requires a completely different set of skills than being a soloist or a solo piano teacher. And the road to perfecting those skills is often obscured, especially at the beginning.