The Department of Music at OSU offers a comprehensive program for undergraduate and graduate students. Fully accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, the Department offers both the Bachelor of Music as a professional degree and the Bachelor of Arts as a degree in liberal education. Students enrolled in a Bachelor of Music program focus on performance, music education, or music business. Graduate students can earn a Master of Music in Pedagogy and Performance.

OSU places primary emphasis upon the individual, requiring the highest musical standards and supporting each student in developing to his or her fullest potential. Students in the Department study in individual lessons with superbly qualified faculty. The perspective our artist-teachers bring to the educational and artistic process is mature and widely experienced.

The Seretean Center for the Performing Arts includes a Concert Hall seating nearly 900, rehearsal halls and faculty studios, classrooms with state-of-the-art audio and video equipment, a computer-equipped multi-media lab, and numerous practice rooms. For keyboard players, the facilities and equipment include Hamburg and New York Steinway concert grands, seventeen other Steinways, two double-manual harpsichords (a Kingston and a Vaughn), two mechanical-action pipe organs (built by Wilhelm and Bigelow), a Klop portative organ, an electro-pneumatic Kilgen pipe organ, and an electronic piano lab. In addition, several fine pipe organs in Stillwater churches are available for our use. Clearly the keyboard student at OSU has access to fine instruments both for practicing and performing.

Keyboard students develop their skills in a variety of ways and thus grow into more fully capable musicians. Weekly lessons are complemented by weekly studio classes, wherein keyboard majors of each applied teacher play for one other and receive valuable input, thus creating an environment of cooperation and shared learning experiences. Students also perform on student recitals as soloists and collaborators with singers and instrumentalists. Choral and instrumental ensembles provide opportunities for pianists, organists, and harpsichordists to be featured with larger performing groups. They may also enter the annual Concerto Competition sponsored by the OSU Symphony Orchestra, which has featured winning pianists in various concerti. Performing opportunities culminate, in most students’ minds, in solo recitals presented as degree requirements (junior, senior and master’s degree recitals) or as self-motivated activities (non-degree recitals, duo-piano recitals, or off-campus recitals).

Keyboard majors are active in various professional organizations and hold student membership in the Music Teachers National Association (with a local branch and a student chapter), the American Guild of Organists (with a local chapter), College Music Educators National Conference, and several other national musical organizations with student chapters at OSU. Students engage in supervised teaching in pedagogy classes, and a number of students also maintain private studios. Some hold salaried positions as church musicians. Many assist with arrangements for visiting artists and have the opportunity to perform in master classes. 

Notable successes of OSU keyboard majors include acceptance to graduate programs such as those at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Michigan, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Southern California, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Hartt School of Music. Other honors include European study under the Bailey Trust, first prizes in Oklahoma Music Teacher Association piano competitions in 2006, 2005, 2003 and 1996, the state winner in the MTNA Collegiate Artist Competition in Piano in 1997, and successes in the 1994 MTNA-Wurlitzer Collegiate Artist Competition in Organ (state and divisional winner, 2nd place national) and the 1995 Strader Competition in Organ (national winner). OSU keyboard majors have established successful careers in music that include positions in university teaching, public school teaching, music therapy, church music, studio teaching, symphony orchestra public relations, music retail store ownership, professional accompanying, and opera coaching (including an alumnus who currently works as an Associate Opera Coach at the Juilliard School in New York). 

The keyboard faculty welcomes the opportunity to discuss the options and opportunities awaiting you at Oklahoma State University. You will find our superb program both challenging and exciting, as we help you reach your full musical potential.

For inquiries about our program, please call 405-744-6133 or write to:

OSU Department of Music
132 Seretean Center for the Performing Arts
Stillwater, OK 74078-4077