Pianists and music lovers of all ages are invited to take part in a weekend of music, learning, and community at Albion College. The annual Piano Festival returns beginning November 7th, offering students the chance to perform, connect with fellow musicians, and learn from distinguished faculty and guest artists.
The Albion College Piano Festival was established in the fall of 2008. It was inspired by the memory of Vera Reed, an Albion resident and piano teacher who taught well into her nineties and played on even later in her life.
While there is a competition element and students can compete for cash prizes, the college hopes that students will find this festival to be more about opportunities for performance, meeting and hearing other piano students, and taking lessons and/or master classes from Albion piano faculty and guest artists. In other words, this festival is viewed as educational, first and foremost. There is a sign-up fee for participants, but the public is invited to spectate the weekend’s festivities for free.
Competition and Masterclasses
The festival weekend will feature two days of closed competition and master classes, spanning Saturday & Sunday, November 8th & 9th. Each competitive category will showcase musicians of different experience levels, with competitions in the following: mid-late elementary, early intermediate, intermediate, late intermediate, and advanced.
All competition events, lessons, master classes and concerts are free and open to the public. Please come support your students and listen to their competitors, we only ask that each performer is treated with respect. Standard Concert etiquette is expected at all events.
For students interested in participating, the registration fee is $50 per entrant. This includes lunch for the day of competition, participation in master classes and lessons, and a t-shirt. Registration deadline is Wednesday, November 5, 2025. Late entries will be based on availability.
Guest Performances
The weekend will kick-off with an opening recital on Friday, November 7th, taking place at 7:30pm in Goodrich Chapel. The recital will feature two guest performers, Dr. Karen Walwyn and Dr. Wendy Freeland, shown below.
Dr. Karen Walwyn
Dr. Karen Walwyn, the first African-American female Steinway Artist as a concert pianist/composer, is an Albany recording artist and a Florence Price scholar. Noted as the first pianist to record the Florence Price Concerto in E Minor for piano, Walwyn has continued to perform, record, and present research on Florence Price as she began her work on composers of color with her first two recordings from Albany Records.
Walwyn performs as a solo artist and as a guest artist with symphony orchestras across the continent and abroad. She has recorded and produced five albums and has been a guest artist with the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in 2021, where she premiered the newly released recording of Price’s authentic score of Concerto in One Movement in E Minor. Walwyn’s most recent album release, Florence B. Price, was selected as a top five pick by Fanfare Magazine’s critic James Harrington.
Dr. Wendy Freeland
Dr. Wendy Freeland is a Distinguished Professor of Music at Jacksonville State University. She completed her graduate degrees in piano performance at the University of South Carolina under John Kenneth Adams. Her Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance is from Florida Atlantic University where she studied with Heather Coltman and Judith Burganger.
At her university she has been the recipient of the “Faculty Research Award” several times and was honored to receive the Cleo and Carla Thomas Outstanding Education/Service Award in 2022. She organizes the Foothills Piano Festival, directs the JSU Music Academy, and is a Past President of the Alabama Music Teachers Association. She currently serves as the Vice President for the American Matthay Association and is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music.
Please contact David Abbott by email at dabbott@albion.edu for further information.
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