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Studios

Piano Studio

Start your musical transcendence at UCF with our dedicated faculty in University of Central Florida’s School of Performing Arts – Music Department. In the Piano Studio, students are encouraged to seek out their strength and potential through a program designed to serve individuality and diversity. Our piano students are compelled to build a strong technical foundation, push their limits of excellent pianism, and grow as compassionate musicians.

UCF prepares our piano students for a wide range of possible career paths, which includes teaching at all levels, performing traditional and new music, and working as collaborative artists as well as soloists.

Our pianists are provided with weekly one-on-one lessons in addition to studio class, Tuesday and Thursday performance forums, and ensemble classes. Performance opportunities are given to develop both solo and ensemble playing in a variety of performance venues both on campus and in Orlando community. Each year, our pianists are featured in public concerts in ensembles such as UCF Symphony, UCF Concert Band, and UCF Jazz Band. Pianists may participate in ensembles ranging from traditional classical chamber music ensembles to contemporary ensembles, and in recital series, master classes, and in-house recitals annually.

Piano students will graduate with a solid piano technical foundation and through piano performance, be able to express themselves individually and artistically. They will also know how to evaluate and solve problems on their own and how to think for themselves. Students will also be familiar standard and new classical piano repertoire in solo, collaborative piano and piano ensemble and will have sight-reading proficiency at the keyboard.

Click here to learn about studying piano in the Jazz Studio.

Dr. Sun-A Park

Korean-American pianist Sun-A Park has won First Prize at the Kosciuzko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition and the Olga & Serge Koussevitzky Young Artists Awards, and prizes at the 4th Sendai International Music Competition and the 58th Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. She has been a soloist with the Yale Philharmonia, the Sendai Symphony Orchestra(Japan), the Houston and Albany Symphonies, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento (Italy), the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra (Spain), and other ensembles. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in 2020. Currently, Park is an Assistant Professor of Piano at University of Central Florida.

  • DMA, Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University
  • Master of Musical Arts and Artist Diploma, Yale University
  • Konzertexamen, Hannover Musikhochschule (Germany)
  • Master of Music, The Juilliard School
  • Bachelor of Music, The Juilliard School

Bachelor of Music, Piano Performance

Bachelor of Music Education, emphasis in Piano

Bachelor of Arts, Secondary Piano

Master of Arts, emphasis in Piano Performance, Pedagogy and Collaborative Piano

BACHELOR OF MUSIC – MUSIC PERFORMANCE

Students are required to prepare an audition following these guidelines:

  • All major and harmonic minor scales and arpeggios, 2 octaves in parallel motion
  • Memorized program of three contrasting styles periods: a work from the Baroque period (for example, J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue, Two or Three-Part Invention); a movement from a Classical Sonata (for example, Clementi, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven); and a solo work from 19th or 20th century composer.
  • Candidates will be asked to sight-read
BACHELOR OF MUSIC EDUCATION OR BACHELOR OF ARTS

Students are required to prepare an audition following these guidelines:

  • All major and harmonic minor scales and arpeggios
  • Memorized program of two contrasting works from different style periods
  • Candidates will be asked to sight-read
MASTER OF ARTS – MUSIC PERFORMANCE

Students interested in specialized areas of performance must have had prior private study and studies in musical training (theory, ear training, sight reading) in order to pursue a performance degree. Students are required to prepare for an audition following these guidelines:

  • All major and harmonic minor scales and arpeggios, 2 octaves in parallel motion
  • Memorized program of not less than 30 minutes that includes contrasting works from at least three different styles periods: a work from the Baroque period (for example, J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue, Two or Three-Part Invention); a movement from a Classical Sonata (for example, Clementi, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven); and a solo work from 19th and/or 20th century composer.
  • Candidates will be asked to sight-read

Several B.M. piano alumni have already completed or going to pursuit of master’s and doctoral degrees in prestigious programs such as Universities of Denver, Hartford (Hartt), George Mason, Colorado Boulder, The Catholic University of America and more. 

One B.M. piano graduate was named 2017-18 Fulbright Scholar and awarded a scholarship to study a master’s degree in Munich, Germany. 

Many alumni are working as accomplished performers and pianists, college piano instructors, private piano teachers, public/private school music educators and church music directors in the metropolitan area of New York City, New Jersey, Oregon, New Mexico, Illinois and Florida. 

Multiple former & current students won state piano competitions, UCF concerto competition, UCF Performance Excellence Award, performed in state/national conferences and performed in prestigious international music festivals and venues including Saarburg Festival (Germany), Vianden Festival (Luxembourg) and Sala Ignacio Cervantes Concert Hall (Cuba).

Multiple former & current students won state piano competitions, UCF concerto competition, UCF Performance Excellence Award, performed in state/national conferences and performed in prestigious international music festivals and venues including Saarburg Festival (Germany), Vianden Festival (Luxembourg) and Sala Ignacio Cervantes Concert Hall (Cuba).

Alumni Highlights


Corin Staves ’17
B.M., Music Performance | Piano
2018-19 Fulbright Scholar


James Rode ’04
B.A., Music | Piano (Classical)
Choral/Vocal Director at Celebration High School; Company Member, Florida Opera Theatre


Joe Gennaro ’95
B.A., Music | Piano (Classical)
Ph.D, Musicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Faculty, UCF

Marius Tesch ’12
B.M., Music Performance | Piano (Classical)
Faculty, Orlando Music Institute


Stephanie (Smeltzer) Poxon ’95
BME | Piano (Classical)
Director for the Center for the Arts, Richmond, VA


Tiffany (Ashton) Drenth ’02 ’04
B.M., Composition; B.A., Music | Piano
Teacher, Oklahoma City University