Instructor

Dr. Lillie Gardner has been teaching piano for over a decade. In addition to her private teaching through Gardner Piano Studio, she has taught as adjunct piano faculty at New York University and at the University of Connecticut, where she was also on the piano faculty of the Community School of the Arts. She is a member of the Saint Paul Piano Teachers Association, the Minnesota Music Teachers Association, and the Music Teachers National Association where she is an Evaluator for the MTNA eFestival and an MMTA Endorsed Judge. She believes strongly that all people have the capacity to create beautiful music and to express themselves intellectually and artistically, and she strives to cultivate and support this artistic independence in each of her students.

Dr. Gardner has performed at the "Chopin 200" Festival at the World Financial Center, the “Tutte le Corde: Piano Music After 1950” concert series in Greenwich Village, Steinway Hall, Saklad Auditorium, Bellevue Hospital, Teatro de Casa Italiana, Southampton Cultural Center, Frederick Loewe Theater, von der Mehden Recital Hall, the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, and in chamber music concerts at Provincetown Playhouse and the Tenri Cultural Institute of New York. She has also performed throughout the Twin Cities in venues such as Benson Great Hall, Sundin Music Hall, the Landmark Center, and the James J. Hill House.

Dr. Gardner is particularly passionate about American music and the inclusion of women composers in concert programming. In 2017 she curated "American Literature in Recital," at which she performed solo and collaborative American works inspired by the words of American writers, and dedicated the 2017-2018 concert season to the music of American composer Amy Beach, whose 150th birth anniversary was in September of 2017. In 2019 she presented a program of underrepresented works by American composers in Minneapolis.

Dr. Gardner holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from New York University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Connecticut. Originally from Saint Paul, she began her studies with Dr. Joseph Zins of Crocus Hill Studios.

These days, outside of piano teaching, Dr. Gardner is most active as a prose and screenwriter. Much of her work is inspired by her musical background. She wrote a limited series pilot screenplay about composer Amy Beach, which was an Official Selection and winner of Outstanding Drama Pitch at the 2021 Catalyst Story Institute. This project received grants from Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council’s Next Step Fund. She’s also written an animated kids script about underrepresented composers that won at Austin Film Festival in addition to receiving many other accolades. Learn more about this and other projects at lilliegardner.com.

More performances can be viewed on YouTube.