Pianist Lise Keiter has performed nation-wide and is active as a solo recitalist, collaborative artist, and soloist with orchestra. In the summer of 1998, she was awarded a fellowship to study at the Internationale Academie de Musique in Gargenville, France, where she appeared several times in performance. In the fall of 2006, she returned to France to perform two concerts as part of the International Roussel Festival. In October of 2009, she performed Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto in two concerts with the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra, and she also performed Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Waynesboro Symphony in 2007. In November of 2006, she was the featured soloist in a performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto at Elon University in North Carolina. Other recent concert engagements have taken her to West Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Idaho, Wisconsin, Illinois, South Carolina, and throughout Virginia.
Dr. Keiter joined the faculty at Mary Baldwin College in the fall of 1998 and is currently the Music Department Chair. Her work at Mary Baldwin led her to develop an interest in the music of women composers, and in 2005, she developed an all-women composers program of solo piano works, in honor of the bicentenary year of pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847). This highly popular recital has become her most-requested program, and she has performed it over a dozen times to date. She was awarded a sabbatical leave during the spring semester of 2008, when she returned to the women composers’ project in a series of recitals, lectures, and masterclasses throughout the United States.
Frequently called upon as a lecturer, adjudicator, and masterclass clinician, Dr. Keiter is active in many organizations, including MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) and CMS (College Music Society). She has presented at conferences on regional and national levels, she is the MTNA Competitions Chair for Virginia, and for many years she has served on the board of Mid-Atlantic Chapter of CMS (she is currently the Past-President for CMS-MA.).
Originally from Charleston, Illinois, Dr. Keiter has a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory, where she received several top prizes. She completed a Master’s Degree and the Doctorate of Music at Indiana University, where she also received the Award for Outstanding Teaching. Her teachers have included Leonard Hokanson, Gyorgy Sebok, Robert McDonald, Emile Nauomoff, and Evelyn Brancart.
Dr. Robert T. Allen serves on the music faculty at Mary Baldwin College, where he was head of the music department for nineteen years. A native of Marion, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, Allen holds two degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a Morehead Scholar — the BA with Honors in English and Philosophy, and the MM in Choral Art; an MA in English from Cornell University; and a PhD in Musicology from the University of Michigan (with special emphasis in 19th Century Music). His special areas of interest and research include Bach Cantatas, Music Aesthetics, the Lieder of Franz Schubert, and the works of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Dr. Allen’s main mentors at UNC were O.B. Hardison, Jr, and Maurice Natanson. His thesis advisor at U. of M. was Roland John Wiley. His longtime voice teacher was Rolf Sander. He studied conducting with Richard Cox, Lara Hoggard, and Jürgen Jürgens, founder and former director of the Monteverdi Chor of Hamburg, Germany.
Dr. Allen directed the Mary Baldwin College Choir in the 1980s; and he started and directed the small vocal groups Baldwin Charm and Madrigal Singers (now Bella Voce) in the 1990s. Since 1982 he has served as manager of the Carl Broman Concerts, organizing six concerts each season at the college. Beginning in 1989, he has taught on-scene spring courses on a regular basis in New Orleans (History of Jazz) and in Vienna, Austria (Music in Vienna). His hobbies include gardening and genealogy.
Sharon Barnes (ADP)
Elise Blake (violin, viola)
Elizabeth Brightbill (flute)
Beth Cantrell (cello)
Jolene Flory (voice, madrigal singers)
Linda Heuer (piano, staff accompanist)
Laura Hoffman (Fundamentals)
Eloise Kornicke (piano)
Rachel Quagliariello (voice, Baldwin Charm)
Ibby Roberts (ADP)
Humberto Sales (guitar)
Melissa Sumner (voice)
David Tate (choir, music education)
Sherry von Oeyen (staff accompanist)
