Claire Wachter, Associate Professor
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(541) 346-3758 | cwachter@uoregon.edu
Pianist Claire Wachter joined the distinguished roster of International Steinway Artists in June 2011. Wachter has appeared in solo, chamber and concerto concerts throughout the United States and in Austria, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Canada, Singapore and China. Recent performances include concertos for two pianos with Steinway Artist Dean Kramer and the Eugene Symphony Orchestra and Oregon Mozart Players. Reviews include “….. charismatic performers… they perfectly captured the playfulness, passion, sensitivity and, above all, the joyfulness that this concerto calls for….” And “…This concerto is a tour de force of teamwork…… a formidable feat, which they made look effortless.” Wachter and Kramer have performed two piano recitals in the United States and Finland, as well as Taiwan’s National Recital Hall (2007) and the China’s Qingdao Grand Hall (2011).
Wachter has performed with the Oregon Bach Festival, the Oregon Festival of American Music, the Utah Music Festival, the Rome Festival (Italy) and the Russian River Chamber Music Festival (California). In the Northwest, she has appeared with the Eugene Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Oregon Mozart Players, and the DeRosa Chamber Players of Portland.
Wachter has been a collaborative artist in chamber music concerts with members of the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Chicago, Philadelphia, Oregon, and Pittsburgh Symphonies.
Wachter has been an invited lecturer and has given master classes at Queen’s University in Canada, Doshisha University in Japan, Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, East Tennessee State University, Hood College and Towson State University in Maryland. She was an invited presenter for the American Music/American Women conference in Colorado (1995), the Music Teachers National Association conferences in Dallas (1997), Kansas City, MO (2004), Toronto, Canada with co-presenter Dean Kramer (2007) and an invited panelist for the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Conference at the University of Oklahoma (2008). She is an invited lecturer for MTNA 2012 in New York City.
For the World Piano Pedagogy Conference Wachter has chaired The Committee on the Future of Piano Pedagogy (2002, 2004) and presented a lecture-recital (2005) In 2004 Wachter was invited to be one of three national MTNA piano judges for the Baldwin and Yamaha piano competitions. Wachter was a member of the summer piano faculty of the International Institute for Young Musicians (IIYM) at the University of Kansas (2005-2008) and was honored by IIYM’s Working Partnership Award (2005).
As an author, Wachter’s articles have appeared in numerous magazines, including Piano and Keyboard, Keyboard Companion, Piano Life, The Oregon Musician, The e-Oregon Musician and The Piano Quarterly.
Wachter completed degrees from Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory of Music and The University of Texas at Austin. Her teachers include John Perry and Julio Esteban. In Europe Wachter studied with Carlo Zecchi (Austria) and Rosa Sabater (Spain).
Wachter has held faculty positions at the University of Texas in Austin (collaborative piano) and the University of the Pacific in California (piano performance). Presently, she is an Associate Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy and former chair of the piano department at the University of Oregon. Her students have been prizewinners in local, regional and national competitions.
