Maria Corley, African American Pianist

[Soulscapes: Piano Music by African American Women; Maria Corley, piano; Troy 857 (2006)] [Twelve Etudes; Maria Corley, piano; Albany Records Troy 639 (2004)]

African American Pianist Maria Corley has been known to us for years because she recorded works of H. Leslie Adams, who is profiled at AfriClassical.com, on the CD Twelve Etudes (1994). Her latest CD is Soulscapes and features works of Viola Kinney, Valerie Capers, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Undine Smith Moore, Florence Price, Zenobia Powell Perry and Margaret Bonds.

Maria's radio and television appearances in Canada and the U.S. have been numerous. For example, she was a guest castaway on NPR’s “Desert Island Discs” hosted by Ellen Hughes. She has also been on radio in Bridgetown, Barbados and on television in El Salvador. We are happy to present her bio, followed by a summary of her teaching experience:

Jamaican-born Canadian pianist Maria Thompson Corley gave her first public performance at the age of eight. Since then, she has appeared on radio, television, and concert stages in Canada, the United States, Central America, the Caribbean, Bermuda and Europe, both as a solo and collaborative artist, including performances in Budapest at the Liszt Academy, and in Carnegie Recital Hall, Aaron Davis Hall and Alice Tully Hall, all in New York City. She has collaborated with such artists as Metropolitan Opera soprano Priscilla Baskerville, and internationally renowned clarinetist James Campbell. Her performances as soloist with orchestra include engagements with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gunther Schuller, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Gunzenhauser, and the Allegro Chamber Orchestra, with Brian Norcross.

Her first CD, Dreamer, a collaboration with tenor Darryl Taylor, was released internationally on the Naxos label. Her subsequent discs, on Albany, include a recording of the first twelve of African American composer Leslie Adams' etudes for solo piano and Soulscapes, consisting of music for solo piano by African American women.

Her undergraduate work was completed at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where she studied with Alexandra Munn, whose teachers include Irwin Freundlich. Maria Corley received both Masters and Doctorate degrees in piano performance from the Juilliard School, where she was a student of renowned Hungarian pianist Gyorgy Sandor and the only pianist admitted into the doctoral program for the period of two years. She was also chosen to represent her alma mater in a tour of Central America, where she gave performances and master classes.

Aside from being an accomplished pianist, Maria Corley is an author, whose first novel, Choices, was published by Kensington. She is also a composer and arranger of music for both solo voice and chorus, with pieces commissioned and recorded by the Florida A&M University Concert Choir, the Tallahassee Boys Choir, and soprano Randye Jones.

She currently serves as staff accompanist at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Maria Corley is a member of Sigma Alpha Iota and a Rotary Club Paul Harris fellow.

Teaching Experience

1999-present Part time Assistant Professor and Staff Accompanist,

Millersville University, Lancaster, PA

Duties include accompanying for recitals given by advanced students and faculty members and teaching private piano lessons to non-majors.

1994-1999 Assistant Professor, Florida A & M University, Tallahassee

Duties included teaching class piano and applied piano, advising students, serving on committees, recruiting, and collaborating with students and colleagues, and accompanying the concert choir.

1991 Master Classes, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala

Repertoire covered ranged from the famous Minuet in G from the Anna Magdalena Book to Faschingsswank aus Wien by Schumann and Chopin’s E Minor Piano Concerto. Costa Rican students were music majors from the University of San Jose, while in Guatemala I instructed pupils attending the National Institute (a music conservatory). El Salvador’s students were much younger and less advanced.

1989-1992 Teaching fellow, The Juilliard School, music history and secondary piano

Materials used included Bartok’s Mikrokosmos and For Children, the Anna Magdalena Book, Hanon, Pischna, the Smith progressive sight reading books, Bach inventions, Schumann’s Album for the Young, easy pieces by Milhaud, Kabalevsky, Stravinsky, and Diamond, etudes by Czerny, Cramer, and Lemoine, sonatinas by Kuhlau, Clementi, and Diabelli, as well as other pieces found in the Music for Millions and Classics to Moderns collections and various other works or movements of works.

1979-present Private piano instructor of beginners through advanced pupils, children and adults

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African+American" rel="tag">African American
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