Dr. Karen A. Allred received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in May, 2007. She holds the Master of Music degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she studied with Michael Zenge. She joined the faculty of Meredith College in 1989. Further studies include work with Taubman techniques.
Allred was awarded an Emerging Artist Grant from the City of Raleigh Arts Commission in 1991-1992 in the area of piano performance. In 1991 she was a semi-finalist in the National Beethoven Piano Sonata Competition as well as an alternate in 1993. Performances in master classes have included work with Ruth Laredo, Paul Schenley, Menahem Pressler, Clifton Matthews, John Perry, and Walter Hautzig.
She maintains a private studio in Chapel Hill where she enjoys teaching adults and pre-college students of all ages. Her students have received awards at state and international levels.
Allred is an active festival and master class clinician, adjudicator, and recitalist. She gave a workshop for the Wilmington Piano Teachers Association in 2005 (“Preparing Students to be College Piano Majors”), the Charlotte Piano Teachers Forum in 2000 (“Beyond the Page”), and was a presenter of the NCMTA piano contest repertoire list for the state of North Carolina in 2003. She presented a session on Sergei Lyapunov’s Preludes, Op. 6, at the UNC-G Focus on Piano Literature in the summer of 2006. Areas of current research and interest include the solo piano works of Sergei Lyapunov, Russian piano literature, and the Russian language. She is currently working on a performer’s guide for Sergei Lyapunov’s Preludes for solo piano, Op. 6.
Dr. Allred serves on the Board of Directors of the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild where she serves as the chair of the Sights and Sounds on Sundays chamber music series held at the North Carolina Museum of Art (www.rcmg.org). She is involved with the Mallarme Youth Chamber Orchestra coaching talented young chamber musicians (MYCO, www.mycomusic.org).
She has collaborated with members of the North Carolina Symphony as well as having appeared as a solo recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra in Bougival, France, Colorado, South Carolina, New York, North Dakota, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina. Critics have described her playing as “stunning,” having a “lovingly produced sound that circled and enveloped the listeners” and presenting a “confident mastery” (CVNC).
Degrees Held: B.M., Meredith College; M.M., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; D.M.A., University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Courses Taught at Meredith College: Piano, Baroque Music History, Seminar in Music Literature: Beethoven. Her studio includes college piano majors as well as non-majors, pre-college students (beginning—advanced), advanced adults, and music theory for pre-college students.
Contact: 210 Wainwright, (919) 760-2877, allredk@meredith.edu