Michael Stepniak | Creative Professional Lecture Series

Join the School of Music for a lecture by Michael Stepniak.

Michael Stepniak, Dean and Professor of Music at Shenandoah Conservatory, is a broadly trained artist, educational innovator, music lover, and higher education leader.

Stepniak has been privileged to engage in national conversations about arts and training. He has been a member of the board of directors of International Council of Fine Arts Deans, has advised and consulted with higher education leaders from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to Rice University, and is a member of ICFAD’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. His essay on the future of classical music performance training became one of the most read articles in the history of the College Music Symposium. And he is currently completing a book on the future music training in higher education for Routledge Press and CMS, together with co-author and long-time chamber music partner Peter Sirotin.

As Dean at Shenandoah Conservator (where he oversees over 200 faculty and staff and 700 students in 27 academic degrees across the performing arts, as well as a 1,200-student arts academy) he has led his faculty and students in multiple innovative initiatives. Most recently, he led his school to undertake a first-in-the-USA project; one that saw the Conservatory close all classes/rehearsals/lessons for one week and turn spaces and resources over to students as they prepared for and then presented/performed student-led collaborative projects. (More about Student Performance Week here.)

As a soloist and chamber musician, Stepniak has performed in major concert halls and venues in 11 countries. Papers such as the Washington Post have referred to his playing as “tremendously poised” and “transcendent.”

Polish-Australian Stepniak completed his doctoral studies in the interdisciplinary fields of aesthetics, leadership, and arts education at Harvard University (where he won the Spencer Fellowship and Entering Award), graduate studies in viola at Peabody Conservatory (where he won the Sidney Friedberg Prize and served as principal violist of the Peabody Symphony), in musicology at Northwestern University (where he was appointed to the alpha chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda) and in violin at New England Conservatory (where he was leader of the Honors Quartet).  He grew up in Australia, and at the age of 15 left his family and home country to pursue music studies in North America. 

Recital attendance is available for students.

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435 Newell Dr.
Gainesville

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352-392-0223

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