Piano Faculty
Barbara Fast serves on the piano faculty at the University of Oklahoma as Director of Piano Pedagogy and Piano Area Chair, where she coordinates the group piano program as well as teaches graduate and undergraduate piano pedagogy. Dr. Fast was the 2020 recipient of OU’s prestigious David Ross Boyd Professor Award for excellence in teaching, and in 2014 OU’s Regents Award for Superior Teaching.
Her lifelong interest in effective teaching eventually led Dr. Fast to researching and discussing the practical applications of educational research for teaching in the private lesson and group class. A culmination of her interest in effective learning and practicing, and their integration with current and future technology, resulted in the book iPractice: Technology in the 21st Century Music Practice Room (Oxford, 2018). Recently, Dr. Fast has presented at numerous webinars and online town halls focused on practicing, teaching group piano, and issues in higher education related to the pandemic. Her webinar Overcoming the Brain’s Negativity Bias is available on the MTNA website. Frequent workshop topics led by Dr. Fast include efficient practicing, technology related to practicing, sight-reading, the brain and learning, overcoming performance anxiety, teaching ensemble music, newly published music, and historical keyboard pedagogy.
An active clinician and adjudicator, Dr. Fast has presented at Music Teachers National Conferences, International and National College Music Society Conferences, ISME International Conference, The Classical Music Festival Eisenstadt, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, NCKP National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, EPTA International Conference, and MTA state conferences. Dr. Fast’s articles and reviews have been published in Music Performance Research, American Music Teacher, The Piano Magazine, and the New School for Music Study blog. Additionally, she has performed in chamber settings in England, Russia, Japan, and India as well as presented lecture recitals and master classes throughout the United States.
A devoted teacher, Dr. Fast’s students have won numerous awards and secured teaching positions nationally and internationally, including in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia. The OU collegiate chapter won the MTNA national Chapter of the Year award in 2017, 2009, and 2007. In recognition of her guidance and mentoring of students, Dr. Fast was the recipient of the Oklahoma Music Teacher of the Year award and OU’s Irene and Julian Rothbaum Presidential Professor of Excellence in the Arts.
Dr. Fast co-founded the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum (GP3) in 2000, a biannual conference affiliated with MTNA that focuses on group piano and piano pedagogy teaching. An active member of the Music Teachers National Association, she serves on the GP3 executive committee and currently is Immediate Past-President of the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association. She has served in numerous national and state MTNA and NCKP piano pedagogy related positions, including the Editorial Board of the MTNA E-Journal, and as Associate Editor of Piano Pedagogy Forum.
Former faculty appointments include the University of Northern Iowa, Hesston College, and Woodstock International School in India. Her broad interests are represented in her undergrad degree with a double-major in piano and flute, paired with a minor in English. When she is not teaching, presenting workshops, or engaging in research, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and interacting with family and friends.
Dr. Jeongwon Ham has won top prizes at numerous piano competitions, including the Bartók/Kabalevsky international competition, Epinal international competition, Paul Hindemith competition, Artur Schnabel competition, and the Simone Belsky competition. She is a recipient of several honors and grants and has been nominated several times for the Regent’s Award for Creative Research and Teaching. The New York Concert Review referred to her recital in Merkin Hall as “an admirable piano recital. The German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau has written, “Jeongwon Ham possessed astonishing and effortless technique. She plays not only with incredible warmth but also with great power.”
Dr. Ham has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher in many European countries, Asia, and the United States. Also, she has appeared at international and national conferences and festivals including the Festival Internationale Incontri Musicali di Sorrento in Italy, World Piano Conference in Serbia, and the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities.
As an adjudicator, Dr. Ham has served at many international and national piano competitions including the Bartók/Kabalevsky/Prokofiev international competition, World Piano competition, Classical American international competition, Asian International Piano Academy and Festival competition, Sonatina and Sonata International Youth Piano competition, and Starr Young Artist National competition. In addition, she is frequently invited to judge MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) piano competitions at state, divisional, and national levels.
Dr. Ham has held teaching positions in Asia, Europe, and the US. In Germany, she taught at the Hochschule für Musik Hans-Eisler and the Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach Music Pre-college in Berlin, and the University of Duisburg. In addition, she has served as a guest professor position at the Graduate College of Performing Arts of the Ewha Women’s University and the Asia International Piano Academy and Festival (AIPAF) in Korea; a guest master teacher at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou and Artist in Residence at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, China; a faculty member at the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria. Since 2014, she is a faculty member at the annual International Piano Festival in Lindlar, Germany. Her students frequently distinguish themselves as winners at many competitions at regional, national, and international levels, and hold teaching positions at universities and colleges in the US and Asia.
Dr. Jeongwon Ham obtained piano performance degrees from the US and Germany. Her principal teachers were Professors Sequiera Costa, Klaus Hellwig, Hans Leygraf, and Ludger Maxsein. She also studied with Edith Picht-Axenfeld, Claude Frank, Karl Heinz Kämmerling, Alfons Kontarsky, Vitaly Margulis, and Gyögy Sebok privately and at International Piano Academies.
- Künstlerische Abschlußprüfung - Folkwang Hochschule für Musik, Essen, Germany
- Konzertexamen - Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, Germany
- DMA (Piano Performance) - University of Kansas
Polish-born pianist Igor Lipinski made his orchestra debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra on NPR’s Performance Today and performed with Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, Butler County Symphony Orchestra, Woodstock Mozart Festival Orchestra, Lakes Area Music Festival Orchestra, and Paderewski Symphony Orchestra at Chicago’s Symphony Center. He maintains an active concert career in the U.S. including a live broadcast recital at Chicago’s premiere classical music station 98.7 WFMT and “33 Variations,” an award-winning theater play based on Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.
At age 12, Lipinski won the Grand Prix and the First Prize at the Paderewski Competition for Young Pianists in Tuchów, Poland. At 17, he played the role of a pianist in Kazimierz Braun’s theatre play "Paderewski's Children" at the University at Buffalo. A year later, he graduated from the Paderewski Music High School in Tarnów, Poland where he studied piano with Jaroslaw Iwaneczko.
Lipinski earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Musical Arts and Master of Music in Piano Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester where he studied piano under the tutelage of Douglas Humpherys. As a teaching assistant of Vincent Lenti and Tony Caramia, he received Eastman’s Teaching Assistant Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Lipinski continued his graduate studies at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music earning his Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance under the tutelage of Alan Chow. Upon graduation from Northwestern, Lipinski joined the piano faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as the Lecturer of Piano where he received the KMTA Teacher of the Year award. In Fall 2017, Lipinski joined the piano faculty at the University of Oklahoma as the Assistant Professor of Piano.
Lipinski’s students have won multiple awards including the University of Oklahoma Concerto Competition and the Oklahoma MTNA Young Artist Piano Competition. Lipinski has been an adjudicator for many national piano competitions including Texas Music Teachers Association State Conference in Houston and the Young Artist Piano Competition Finals of the 2020 MTNA National Conference in Chicago where he was also selected to present a conference session entitled “Reimagining The Piano Recital: Creative Ideas To Engage Your Audience.”
Lipinski’s research interests focus on the history of recital programming featured in his DMA dissertation “From Liszt to Victor Borge: A Legacy of Unique Piano Performances.” Recognized for his own creative programming, Lipinski unified two of his lifetime passions, classical music and magic, in a unique recital program “Piano Illusions.” Originally developed for his honors senior thesis at Eastman, Lipinski collaborated on the program with Teller of Las Vegas duo Penn & Teller and won the WQXR Classical Comedy Contest at Caroline’s on Broadway. In light of his success in New York, Lipinski presented “Piano Illusions” at renowned concert series and festivals including Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation in Salt Lake City and Musica del Cuore Concert Series in Hong Kong.
Highlights of recent concert seasons include recitals at the San Francisco International Piano Festival, College of Charleston International Piano Series in Charleston, South Carolina, The Evelyn Miller Young Pianists Series in Knoxville, Tennessee, and WNYC’s Greene Space in New York City.
After the halt of his concert tour caused by COVID-19 in 2020, he turned to recording, started his own record label Vanishing Records, and released his first album Alchemy available for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. His most recent releases feature an EP of Ravel’s piano music and Masterpieces, a collection of piano music inspired by works of art. Upcoming 2021 releases feature an album of Liszt’s song transcriptions, an EP of piano music by Grażyna Bacewicz, and two books of Janácek’s On an Overgrown Path.
- DMA - Northwestern University
- MM - Eastman School of Music
- BM - Eastman School of Music
Jane Magrath is well known as an author, clinician, and pianist. Her book The Pianist's Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature has become a classic reference work for pianists throughout the country, and Magrath's work in the area of the standard classical teaching literature has been central to the current revival of interest in this music throughout the U.S. She currently has more than forty volumes published with Alfred Music, and her music editions are used widely throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Magrath is frequently in demand as a clinician and teacher, and has performed and given presentations in over forty-five states and on three continents. Her workshops and master classes have drawn international acclaim. Magrath has served as Piano Coordinator for National Conferences of Music Teachers National Association and given presentations at MTNA National Conferences, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the European Piano Teachers Association Conference, the International Society for Music Education, and at many state MTNA conferences. Her articles have appeared in Keyboard Companion, Clavier, and The American Music Teacher, among others. For many years she contributed New Music Reviews to Clavier and the column Polyphony to The American Music Teacher. Later her column Musings appeared regularly in Clavier Companion. Since 2011, Magrath has served as Director of the Classical Music Festival Piano Seminar in Eisenstadt, Austria.
Magrath was the first recipient of the MTNA/Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award for Outstanding Contribution to Piano Pedagogy and was inducted into the Oklahoma Heritage Higher Education Hall of Fame. In 2019 she was honored with the MTNA Achievement Award, MTNA’s highest honor, and also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Conference for Keyboard Pedagogy. Currently she is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Frances Clark Center.
A native of South Carolina, Magrath received her education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Wesleyan College, and was the first person to receive the DM in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University. At the University of Oklahoma Magrath was named Regents' Professor and Rothbaum Presidential Professor in the Arts and also held the Grant Endowed Chair in Piano Pedagogy. From 1995 until 2018 she served as Director of Piano Pedagogy at OU. Her students have been placed in university and college teaching positions throughout the country as well as in many independent piano studios.
- DM - Northwestern University
- MM - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- BM - Wesleyan College
Stephanie Leon Shames
Instructor of Chamber Music and Accompanying
Email: sshames@ou.edu
Professor Stephanie Leon Shames, who serves as a visiting instructor of music and accompanist for the OU School of Music, has performed internationally as a recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist. She has been a guest soloist with the Detroit Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Wyoming Symphony, New Orleans Philharmonic, and on tour with the Orchestra of Chur, Switzerland, among others.
As a chamber musician, she has appeared at numerous international festivals, including the Radio France-Montpellier and MIDEM Classique Festivals, the International Piano Festival at La Roque d'Antheron, the Bordeaux Festival, the Saarbrucken Chamber Music Festival, the Pine Mountain (MI), and Olympic (WA) Music Festivals. She has performed in Detroit's Orchestra Hall, Boston's Tsai Center, the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., Salle Gaveau, the Louvre Recital Hall, the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore, and London's Royal Academy.
While living in Paris, Ms. Leon Shames' collaborations regularly involved tours of France, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain and encased a broad spectrum of activities, including playing harpsichord, playing modern music, being the official accompanist at international competitions, as well as performing as a member of chamber music ensembles. Ms. Leon Shames has been featured on the B.B.C., Radio France, German radio, N.P.R., and French TV.
As an "Artistic Ambassador" selected by the USIA, Ms. Leon Shames has given masterclasses and solo and chamber music performances in Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, and throughout China. With her sister, a violinist, she has recorded two CDs of the music of Faure and Dvorak for Cassiopee Disques. With her husband and duo-pianist partner, Jonathan Shames, she co-founded The Boston Players, a chamber ensemble that drew upon Boston Symphony members and international soloists whose performances are still heard on public radio.
Ms. Leon Shames has previously taught at the University of Puget Sound and at the Interlochen and Marrowstone Music Festivals. She attended the University of Michigan where her teachers included Theodore Lettvin, Leon Fleisher, Charles Fisher, and Eugene Bossart. She joined the University of Oklahoma faculty in 2005.
- MM (Piano Performance) - University of Michigan
- BM (Piano Performance) - University of Michigan
J. P. Murphy serves as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma where he teaches applied piano, graduate piano pedagogy, and coordinates the secondary piano studies program. An active clinician and adjudicator, he frequently presents workshops and guest lectures at the state and national levels. His research on keyboard skills, DEI in the piano studio, effective classroom communication, and early-advanced teaching literature has been featured at numerous organizations, including the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP), the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum (GP3), and the MTNA Collegiate Piano Pedagogy Symposium. With the Frances Clark Center, he has appeared in the From the Artist Bench lecture-performance series, as a contributing instructor in the Intermediate Teacher Education virtual course, and as a panelist at the annual DEI Summit. His work has been published in Piano Magazine and the MTNA e-Journal.
Passionate about art song literature, Murphy frequently performs in recital as a collaborative artist. Highlights from the 2021-2022 season include performances of Fauré’s La chanson d’Ève with Lorraine Ernest and Célia Wollenberg and Schumann’s Kerner Lieder with Leslie John Flannigan. He previously served as a staff accompanist in the pre-college and college divisions of the Manhattan School of Music.
He received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma as a Graduate College Alumni Fellow and was awarded the Provost’s Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for outstanding instruction. He earned a Master of Music in Collaborative Piano at the Manhattan School of Music and completed dual majors in Piano Performance and Pedagogy and Music Education while earning his Bachelor of Music from the State University of New York at Fredonia. Murphy completed additional studies at the Orford Music Academy in Orford, Canada, the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, the Golandsky Institute at Princeton University, and Orff-Schulwerk training at Hofstra University.
Dr. Murphy currently serves as President-Elect of the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association, as a member of the GP3 Steering Committee, and as a member of the NCKP Teacher Education in Higher Education Committee.
- DMA - University of Oklahoma
- MM - Manhattan School of Music
- BM - SUNY Fredonia
