Anne Hastings Fiedler is currently Professor of Music and head of the keyboard area at the University of Evansville. She is a recipient of the prestigious Exemplary Teacher Award given by University of Evansville and also the Outstanding Teacher Award given by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She was honored as Artist of the Year at the 2016 Mayor’s Arts Awards and from 2013-2018 held the title of Oramay Cluthe Eades Distinguished Professor of Music.
An active performer, Professor Fiedler was finalist and prizewinner in the National Beethoven Piano Sonata Competition and has collaborated nationally with a variety of soloists and ensembles, notably in performances at International Trumpet Guild Conference and several International Double Reed Society Conferences. She can be heard on the CD entitled Oboe Serenade. Professor Fiedler has been featured soloist on numerous occasions with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, the Evansville Chamber Orchestra and the University of Evansville Orchestra. She performs frequently as collaborative pianist with faculty and guest artists on the First Tuesday Series and Tuesday Night Concert Series sponsored by the Music Conservatory. Fiedler is also principal keyboard and assistant principal second violin of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra.
Professor Fiedler's diverse areas of interest and teaching experience include studio piano, music theory, piano pedagogy, and collaborative piano. She has reviewed collegiate theory texts for McGraw-Hill Publishing and regularly presents master classes and serves as an adjudicator for local, state, and regional piano competitions. She is co-founder and first president of the Greater Evansville Chapter of the Indiana Music Teachers Association and has presented at IMTA state conferences.
Professor Fiedler holds Bachelor of Music with Highest Honors and Master of Music Degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She currently teaches courses in applied piano and music theory.
Garnet Ungar has appeared throughout the world as piano soloist with orchestra, in recitals and masterclasses at major universities, and in broadcasts on American Public Radio, the CBC in Canada, and Hong Kong Radio. Highlights of recent seasons were recitals and masterclasses at Xinghai Conservatory in China, Kwassui University in Japan, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, the University of British Columbia, Hong Kong Baptist University, Tanglewood, the American Liszt Society in New York City, and the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto. He has also performed in Switzerland, Sweden, and England, and his recording of the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with the Varna Philharmonic in Bulgaria was described in John Bell Young's Clavier Magazine review as "powerful and precise…having solidity and passion, a magisterial presence, structural integrity, immediacy and intensity." In 2009 he released his second CD, of Schubert piano works. A review in Fanfare Magazine mentioned "subtle nuances under perfect control and never sounding self-conscious…a fine control of myriad touches and colors… steady, focused, and unrelenting-a really superlative account." Clavier Companion describes "an impressively imaginative and nuanced musical sensitivity with a refined technique" and "a complexity to his interpretations that cannot be fully appreciated at a first listening."
Dr. Ungar has served on the piano faculties of Mount Royal University in Calgary, the University Settlement House in Toronto, and the Music at Maple Mount Summer Institute in Kentucky. He is currently Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Evansville in Indiana. He regularly adjudicates piano competitions including, most recently, the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival, Midwest Young Artists in Chicago, and Kentucky and Tennessee MTNA. In demand as a private teacher, his students have won several other important local and state competitions. They have included six first prizewinners in the Evansville Philharmonic Competition, four finalists in the Indianapolis Symphony Competition, and first and second place winners in the Murray State/Paducah Symphony Competition. He has also taught multiple State MTNA and Evansville Schmidt Award winners.
Born in Montréal, Québec, Dr. Ungar obtained degrees in piano performance from the Universities of Toronto, Calgary, and Houston, where his principal teachers were William Aide, Marilyn Engle, Abbey Simon, and Ruth Tomfohrde. Additional studies include sessions at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, where he obtained an Associate Performer's diploma, with Marek Jablonski at the Banff School of Fine Arts, Marc Durand and Anton Kuerti at the Centre d'Arts Orford in Québec, and Bernard Ebert at the Académie de Musique de Sion in Switzerland.
Robert Nicholls is Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in Evansville. He began his musical education as a Chorister at Westminster Abbey with Simon Preston. He graduated from Oundle School (Music Exhibitioner) and Cambridge University (Choral Exhibitioner at Gonville and Caius College).
Robert’s organ teachers include James Parsons, Philip Scriven, Roberta Gary, and John Schwandt (improvisation). Robert’s compositions for both organ and choir have been performed and broadcast in both the US and Europe, and at RSCM America summer residential courses. In addition to responsibilities for music at First Pres, Robert accompanies silent movies.
He was an Adjunct Lecturer in Music (Organ) at the IU Jacobs School of Music 2015-2017, teaching graduate-level courses in keyboard skills, improvisation, and the Sacred Music Practicum. Robert is the current Dean of the Evansville Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
