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Pianist Kathryn Woodard curates and performs programs that explore cross-cultural exchange in music. Her performances have taken her recently to China, Korea, Croatia, Germany, Turkey, and the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan where she was the first pianist to perform the music of Henry Cowell, John Cage and Frederic Rzewski in that country. She has collaborated with institutions such as the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Asia Society Texas, and the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution to offer concerts in conjunction with art exhibits, gallery openings and symposia. Woodard has curated several international music residencies at Texas A&M University where she is on the faculty, and she recently launched a music initiative, Sonic Crossroads that explores processes of musical exchange around the globe. As an advocate for new music Woodard has worked with such noted composers Karlheinz Stockhausen, Yehudi Wyner, Ge Gan-ru, and Huang Ruo. She has collaborated with prominent artists including Min Xiao-Fen, Paula Matthusen, and Brooklyn Rider and has been featured on the broadcast Performance Today. Her recording of Four Studies of Peking Opera by Ge Gan-ru with the Shanghai Quartet was released on New Albion Records. Two albums, Silhouettes and Journeys, feature music from around the globe that she has collected and performed over the past 10 years. Her latest album on Albany Records features the music of Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun whose music she has also researched extensively.
Woodard holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Munich Hochschule für Musik. Her main teachers and advisors include Frank Weinstock, Ted Levin, Allen Otte, Barbara Conable, bruce mcclung, Gitti Pirner, Alexander Volkov, and Yasuko Matsuda.
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