Gregory Partain, pianist
Associate Professor of Music

Gregory Partain has toured Poland, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, and has performed as recitalist, chamber musician, or concerto soloist in most regions of the United States. Partain was the national winner of the 1986 KMS Competition in Seattle, leading to concert tours throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 1993 he won first prize in the Memphis Beethoven Club Competition, second prize in the International Bartok-Kabalevsky Competition in Radford, Virginia, and was a finalist in the Concert Artists Guild New York Competition. He has also been a finalist in the San Antonio International Piano Competition and the Beethoven Foundation Auditions in Indianapolis. In October of 1999, Partain made his debut as a composer at the Kentucky Music Teachers Association (KMTA) state convention in Murray with the performance of his two songs for harp and soprano on poems of William Butler Yeats. Since then, he has taken over as KMTA Composition Chair. In the fall of 1997, Partain premiered a new concerto by colleague Larry Barnes with the Transylvania Orchestra under the direction of Ben Hawkins. While on sabbatical leave in 1999-2000, Partain prepared a series of three lecture recitals of the last five Beethoven Sonatas. He has since performed these programs in Boston, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, at Ball State University, Centre College and at Transylvania University. Dr. Partain is also on the faculty of the Kentucky Governor's Scholars Program.

*To hear Partain's performance of the Chopin "Black Key" Etude in G-flat Major,
click here.

EDUCATION                                                                                                           PRINCIPAL PIANO TEACHERS

ADDITIONAL COACHING:       Claude Frank        Jerome Lowenthal        Paul Schenly        Neal O'Doan

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