Dr. Matthew Gianforte is an associate professor of piano at Murray State University. He teaches applied and class piano, as well as piano pedagogy and literature, and he serves as Coordinator of the Keyboard Division. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the Catholic University of America (1999) and both his Masters in Music in Piano Performance (2002) and his Doctor of Music Performance and Literature (2009) from Indiana University. Dr. Gianforte frequently presents master classes and serves as an adjudicator in local, regional, and international competitions, including the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition in November 2018.
Dr. Gianforte is equal parts soloist, collaborator, and teacher. He has performed all across the United States and abroad, including an eleven-concert tour of Eastern China in 2019; successful debut appearances at Weill Recital Hall in New York and Sarada and Philia Halls in Japan; and solo and collaborative recitals honoring the birthdays of Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Debussy. He and his wife, pianist Mee Youn Park, have performed together at numerous events such as festivals, artist series, conferences, and university guest recitals across the country. He has also performed works by contemporary composers such as David DeBoor Canfield, Brian Ciach, Joel Hoffman, JonathanMcNair, and Paul Salerni. In 2018, his recording of sonatas by American composers Easley Blackwood, Wayne Liu, and Halsey Stevens with trumpet player Kurt Gorman was released.
2019 has been a very busy year for Dr. Gianforte. In January, he gave a presentation titled “The Bach Two-Part Inventions: Thoughts on Preparation and Performance Practice” at the Murray Music Teachers Association Mini-Pedagogy Saturday. In May, he toured ten cities in China and performed works by Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Gershwin. In June-July, Dr. Gianforte served on the faculty of the Indiana University Summer Piano Academy, one of the leading summer programs for pre-college pianists for the sixteenth year.
Currently, Dr. Gianforte is organizing a series of memorial concerts for a teacher and mentor from Indiana University, Karen Shaw. Dr. Gianforte plans to perform with his wife at the Silvermine Artists Series (Norwalk, CT), in October and at Indiana University during the Summer Music Festival next summer. He also has a solo/duo concert tour coming up in Spring 2020. Additionally, Dr. Gianforte and Dr. Meeyoun Park will have a lecture/performance at the Music Teachers National Conference in Chicago in March 2020.
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