ABOUT

Dr. Clara Christian grew up in western North Dakota and currently resides in Brentwood, California. Her orchestral debut took place in 2001 playing Grieg's Concerto in A Minor with the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Christian has given performances throughout the U.S. as well as in France, Germany, and Russia. She is active as both a soloist and as a collaborative artist; her collaborative work includes her role as pianist for the clarinet-saxophone-piano trio FuseTrio (www.fusetrio.com ) which commissions cross-over works blending jazz and classical traditions.

Dr. Christian has a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music and a Masters of Music degree from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Her undergraduate degree is from the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music. She was a semi-finalist in the 2017 International Franz Liszt competition, a 2022 finalist for the American Prize in Piano Performance-professional division, and a semi- finalist in the Music International Grand Prix's 2024 competition.

Upcoming projects include recording an album of premieres by four living composers, all commissioned by her between 2024 and 2027.

A member of the American Liszt Society, she also teaches at the bi-annual "Excelsior Piano Academy" in Sondershausen, Germany near Liszt's home in Weimar.

Please contact me! I would love to perform at your school, provide a masterclass, or get your child started in piano lessons for the first time. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

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Dr. Christian started teaching piano lessons while still in high school and has several decades of experience with both pre-collegiate and collegiate students. She has given pedagogy presentations at the local, state, and national level on a variety of subjects, and has taught
applied piano, piano pedagogy, collaborative piano, piano literature, music history, and class piano at College of the Ozarks. She works with piano majors, piano minors, and composition majors, and her students have won awards both at the state and national level.

Dr. Christian is the adviser for the MTNA Collegiate Chapter at the College of the Ozarks which was selected to present at the 2022, 2023 and 2026 MTNA national conferences.

A frequent adjudicator for pre-college competitions, she is passionate about enabling students of all ages to be able to play with a comfortable, versatile approach to the keyboard.