Vanderbilt University
ARTIST FACULTY
Session 1: June 8-19, 2026
BM: Curtis Institute of Music
MM: Yale University School of Music
DMA: Manhattan School of Music
Originally from Lancaster, Pa., Steinway Artist Heather Conner is Chancellor's Chair of Piano and Area Coordinator of the Keyboard Department at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. Prior to this appointment, she was Professor of Piano at The University of Utah School of Music, where she served on the faculty for 14 years.
As a recitalist, Conner has performed in many prestigious venues such as Steinway Hall in New York City. She has also presented solo recitals in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New Haven, Moscow, Salzburg, Seoul, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, Greenville (S.C. and N.C.), Stillwater and Oklahoma City, (Okla.), Tuscaloosa and Montgomery, (Ala.), Murfreesboro and Salt Lake City.
Conner has won grand prizes at several international and national competitions, including the first Hilton Head Island International Piano Competition and the Kingsville International Young Performers Competition, and has performed on numerous occasions as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2010, she performed a solo recital at the Zwischen den Jahren festival in Antweiler, Germany. In 2006, she appeared as recitalist and artist teacher at several venues in Seoul, South Korea. She has recorded commercially for the Naxos and Centaur labels and has been heard on NPR’s Performance Today, WQED in Pittsburgh, WFLN in Philadelphia, and KCSC in Oklahoma City. Her performances can also be heard online at instantencore.com.
An avid chamber musician, Conner has appeared in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and the Glenn Gould Studios in Toronto. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at the Niagara International Chamber Music Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, and is currently an artist performer with America’s Dream Chamber Artists both at Symphony Space in New York City and on tour nationally. She performs every year on the Intermezzo and Nova Chamber Music Series, both based in Salt Lake City, and has performed as a guest artist on the Brightmusic Chamber Music Series in Oklahoma City.
Conner’s students have been prize winners at MTNA national and regional competitions. Anastasia Magamedova competed as one of 24 competitors at the First Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition. Luke Turner was a 3rd Prize Winner in MTNA Nationals in the Senior Piano Category, a participant at the Second Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition, and performed as soloist with the Nashville Symphony as a winner of the Curb Concerto Competition. Conner’s high school students have been accepted as scholarship students at Juilliard, Eastman, New England Conservatory and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, University of Michigan and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Conner completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Arkady Aronov and received the Helen Cohn award for most promising doctoral graduate. Under the guidance of renowned pianist Peter Frankl, Conner received her Master of Music degree from the Yale University School of Music. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in 1997, where she studied with distinguished piano pedagogue Eleanor Sokoloff for five years.
