Kenn Gartner was playing piano as early as two years old. It was clear he would grow up to be a gifted musician, his mother steering him towards the study of the piano after two broken violins had resulted from his flirtation with that instrument.
By the age of eight Kenn was a member of Eva Leoni’s Children’s Opera Company of New York, singing at the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Center, and the Winter Garden. He continued to study the piano with Dr. Carl W. Broman at Mary Baldwin College while attending high school at the Staunton Military Academy (VA).
Kenn majored in Music at Cornell University under the tutelage of the highly influential pianist John Kirkpatrick and the eminent musicologist Donald W. Grout. His education continued with a graduate degree from the Juilliard School of Music where he studied with the celebrated piano teacher Adele Marcus as well as Eduard Steuermann (Arnold Schoenberg’s pianist). Kenn combined his Artist’s Diploma at Juilliard with the pursuit and attainment of a Master’s Degree in Music Education and Musicology from the City University of New York (The Aaron Copeland School of Music, Queens College). He worked under the guidance of Eugene List while earning a fourth degree, a Ph.D. in Performance from New York University’s Steinhardt School.
Dr. Gartner has performed in over 50 countries. His appearances range from a command performance for the Mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to a Master Class in Piano Technique at the Shanghai Institute in China. The latter concert was inspired and informed by his doctoral dissertation, The Expansion of Pianism since 1945, an exploration of the challenges facing the serious contemporary pianist in terms of the education and discipline. Other recitals have included performances at Merkin Concert Hall, at the Kosciuszko Foundation (NYC), and at Wigmore Hall in London. He continues to perform and is scheduled for a solo appearance at Salle Cortot in Paris later this year.
A sterling career in music education was in store for “Doctor G” and he went on to amass more than 40 years’ experience teaching at schools, colleges and universities in New York. His public performances were restricted, although he does have the honour of being the first New York City public school teacher to play New York’s prestigious Town Hall!
Kenn is a natural music educator; not only a piano teacher but also a voice instructor and vocal conductor. He won a £15,000 grant to run a Choral Program with the National Choral Society from 1993-1999, during which time he was also awarded a Conducting Fellowship by Columbia University (1995). Reaching the autumn of his career in institutional education, Kenn began once again to give more regular public performances both as a pianist and conductor. In 2004 Kenn moved from New York to the Bay Area of California where he remains professionally active as a piano, voice and performance practice coach for all instruments and voices.
He is one of only two Juilliard instructors in Piano and in Voice listed on the Juilliard’s Private Teacher Directory for California and is (at the time of writing) the sole Nationally Certified Teacher of Music (NCTM for both voice and piano) in Marin County.
If you require expert musical instruction, or are looking for a seasoned and accomplished pianist for performance, look no further than Doctor G….
