ASHEVILLE PIANO COMPETITION JUDGES

Andrea Adamcova

Andrea Adamcova is a graduate from the Janácek Academy of Music in Brno (1993-1998), Czech Republic, where she studied classical piano with Prof. Daniela Velebova. In May 2000, she graduated in Piano Performance at the University of North Texas, Denton, where she studied with Prof. Adam Wodnicki.

Mrs. Adamcova served as a teaching assistant in Music Theory, Music History, and Keyboard Class Piano at the University of North Texas. Concurrently, she taught piano in the Community Music Program at the University of North Texas. While there, she performed as a pianist with the UNT Wind Symphony under the direction of Eugene Corporon. They recorded two CD's and performed on several major events, including the 66 th Annual Convention of the American Bandmasters Association in Austin, TX. She has participated in many master classes and played for Abbey Simon, Illinca Dumitrescu, Pierre Jasmin, Walter Groppenberger, Eva Solar-Kindermann and others.

Between 2000 and 2002, Mrs. Adamcova served as a piano teacher and accompanist at Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri. In 2002 she established her own private piano studio in Sylva, North Carolina, where she resides with her husband, Pavel, and daughters, Victoria and Natalia.

Since 1999 she has been performing with her husband Pavel Wlosok, an excellent jazz pianist, in a unique series of solo piano recitals aptly titled "Classical Meets Jazz" where Andrea specializes on the classical portion by performing composers of the 20th and 21st century and in the jazz portion of the series Pavel's focus turns to jazz standards as well as his original compositions. Since 2004 Andrea has been a member of Asheville Area Piano Forum and regularly performs at their annual benefit concerts.

As a classical pianist, Mrs. Adamcova has toured throughout Europe and the United States and recorded for French and Czech radio. In the USA she has extensive clinic experiences and is regularly asked to serve as a judge for national and international piano competitions. Mrs. Adamcova is regarded as a promoter of Czech music in USA. Her current projects include finalizing a book about managing stage fright.

David Brickle

Dr. David Brickle serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Milligan University teaching piano and music theory. David has performed widely throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, internationally in Spain, and has appeared in a variety of broadcasts including National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and ETV Radio’s “On the Keys.” David has been a featured guest artist in numerous concert series as soloist and with pianist Chia-Ying Chan in venues including Indiana University Bloomington, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Grand Valley State University, Butler University, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. David has won awards in the South Carolina and Southern Division MTNA competitions, FSU Chapman/Neesen piano competition, Roundtop Festival Institute chamber music competition, and was twice a finalist at the Chautauqua International Piano Competition. David completed his Doctor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance at Florida State University studying with Read Gainsford and Heidi Louise Williams, and a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of South Carolina where he studied with Marina Lomazov. While at FSU, he also completed the Specialized Study Program in Pedagogy of Music Theory. David regularly serves on the faculty of Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan and has previously taught at the MasterWorks Festival and the FSU Summer Piano Institute and Piano Camp.

Elizabeth Churchya

Pianist Elizabeth Churchya has established herself as a charismatic and sensitive performer. She has concertized extensively throughout the United States and England, and is the prize winner of many competitions.

Most recently, Elizabeth appeared as a “Rising Star” soloist with the University of South Carolina Orchestra in performance of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G major. She is a finalist in the Professional division of The American Prize in Piano Performance (Concerto), 2023 and a prizewinner in the 2022 Charleston International Piano Competition. Previously, Elizabeth received her undergraduate degree in piano performance from Christopher Newport University, where she won the scholarship competition three consecutive years. In 2011, she made her orchestra debut after winning the university’s concerto competition with Saint­-Saëns Concerto No. 2 in G Minor. Elizabeth earned her Master of Music and Graduate Certificate in Performance from the University of South Carolina. Her principal instructors include Drs. Jeffrey Brown, Lelia Sadlier, and Joseph Rackers. She has had the privilege of performing in masterclasses for renowned pianists including Nelita True, Edmund Battersby, Jon Klibonoff, Dmitri Rachmanov, and many others.

A dedicated teacher, she was awarded the 2023 University of South Carolina Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award. She maintains a private studio and often serves as adjudicator for many competitions in the Southeast. She taught courses for the Music History department at the University of South Carolina, including Introduction to Film Music, a course she designed herself and quickly became the university’s most popular music elective. An impassioned supporter of the arts, Elizabeth serves as Executive Director of the premier professional chamber orchestra Sinfonia da Camera and Operations Manager of the renowned Southeastern Piano Festival. Elizabeth is a current doctoral candidate at UofSC in Piano Performance studying with Professor Phillip Bush.

Victoria Fischer Faw

VICTORIA FISCHER FAW is a pianist, teacher and scholar with a special emphasis on the music of Béla Bartók and the issues that defined his unique and influential style. The history of Dr. Fischer’s fascination with Bartók’s music began in graduate school: As she was completing her dissertation about the sources and performance practice of Bartók’s Fourteen Bagatelles, Op. 6, she attended, and took the first prize, at Radford University’s 1990 Bartók-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition. Dr. Fischer joined the music faculty of Elon University in North Carolina that same year. Through the years her concerts and lectures have taken her around the world and across the country to share her theories and discoveries about the issues that inform performance practice in Bartók’s music. Because of her ongoing specialization in Bartók studies as scholar and performer, she was invited to direct an international Bartók Symposium at Radford in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. The Radford University Bartók Symposium proved to be a momentous meeting of many of the greatest scholars and performers working in the Bartók world, contributing eventually to  “Bartók Perspectives: Man, Composer, & Ethnomusicologist” edited by Elliott Antokoletz, Victoria Fischer, and Benjamin Suchoff, an Oxford University Press book which included the lectures presented at Radford. Other publications include a chapter contributed to A Bartók Companion (Cambridge University Press) and articles in Studia Musicology and The International Journal of Musicology.

Dr. Fischer received her musical education at Centenary College of Louisiana (B.M. in piano performance), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (M.A. in musicology), the University of Texas at Austin (M.M. and D.M.A. in piano performance), and the Vienna Conservatory in Vienna, Austria. She has received grants from Rotary Foundation International, Fulbright, and IREX.  She pursues an active career as performer, scholar, teacher and adjudicator, with activities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, Italy, Hungary, England, Greece, Germany, Austria, and Belize. Now in her twenty-fourth year on the music faculty at Elon University, she has also served as Visiting Professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and the University of Belize. At Elon she teaches piano, piano pedagogy, and music research. Recipient of a full-year sabbatical leave from Elon 2012 -2013, she is deeply engaged in her present research, which continues to explore the scholarship of performance and pedagogy in the piano music of Bartok. When not at Elon, she lives on a Christmas tree farm in Glade Valley, NC with husband Stephen.

Polly Feitzinger

Polly Shaw Feitzinger is a teacher, performer, lecture-recitalist and author of pedagogical articles for major music journals. She also has adjudicated piano festivals and competitions in a number of states.

Her education includes: A Bachelor of Music Degree as a piano major and organ minor from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Arts Degree from Columbia University Teachers College. In addition, she studied two years at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria where she studied piano, harpsichord, and music history. In New York her teachers were Adele Marcus and Mieczyslaw Munz.

Since moving to the Asheville area in 1991: she was one of the founders of the Asheville Area Piano Forum and has served on the Forum Board in various positions as well as being on the Asheville Chamber Music Series and Asheville Symphony Boards.

Catherine Garner

A collaborative pianist and assistant professor on faculty at Appalachian State University, Dr. Garner received a Doctorate in collaborative arts and chamber music under the direction of Dr. Jean Barr from the Eastman School of Music.  She received a Masters of music degree in vocal accompanying and coaching from Florida State University and a Bachelor of music in piano performance at Louisiana State University.  

Dr. Garner has performed as a soloist with the Appalachian State University Symphony Orchestra, the Louisiana State University Orchestra, the Monroe (La.) Symphony Orchestra, the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the Tallahassee Ballet, and the Big Bend Orchestra.  She was a staff pianist at the American Institute for Musical Studies summer program in Graz, Austria as well as a participant at the Summer Academy in Nice, France with Dalton Baldwin.  She was on staff as a coach for the opera festival, VIMA, for opera, German Liederabend, and Italian Art Song performances for the summer festival, part of the VARNA summer opera festival in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  She participated in both the New Music@ECU Festival and the Festival of New Music at Florida State University and was the official pianist at the East Carolina University Brass Festival and Flute Symposium.  Dr. Garner was a featured performer at the Pershing’s Own Tuba/ Euphonium Conference in Washington DC, SERTEC at NC School of the Arts, NERTEC in Ithaca, NY with Tom McCaslin, and NWERTEC in Lexington, KY with Dr. Jarrod Williams.  In summer 2021 Dr. Garner placed second in the International Collaborative competition of the Puerto Rico Center for Collaborative Piano where she now serves as a member of the artistic board for the summer festival in San Gérman, Puerto Rico.  She has championed and premiered new works at both the International Trumpet Guild Conference and the International Trombone Festival by composer Dr. Mark Richardson. 

Dr. Garner has performed as a collaborative pianist with such groups as The New Music Collective in Charleston, the Coastal Winds, the Greenville Choral Society, and with various soloists, such as Aaron Goldman, assistant principal flutist of the National Symphony, Collin Williams, Associate Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic, and tuba soloist Øystien Baadsvik.  She performs regularly with soprano Serena Hill-Laroche, member of the voice faculty at University of South Carolina.  In 2018 she was the official pianist for the competitions, both high school and collegiate level for the Southern Regional Music Teachers National Association.  Dr. Garner is also the founder of Music on a WIM (Women’s Initiative Music Series), a concert series that featured compositions by women, performed in high traffic areas around the university.  She continues to champion works by underrepresented composers, and recently was awarded a grant from ABIDE organizing and performing on a lecture recital of music by African American women composers along with Nicole Franklin, soprano, and Lenora Helms Hammonds, guest lecturer.  Dr. Garner was asked to be a participant on a BIG READS grant through the ECU Department of English where she organized and led a lecture recital of music by First Nations Composers and Poets, premiering a work for prepared piano by composer Dawn Avery.  She has also been a participant in master classes with Marilyn Horne, William Bolcom, Richard Hundley, Jànos Starker and John Wustman among others. 

Dr. Garner has two published recordings: Monuments and 21st Century Flute Sonatas with Dr. Stephen Ivany, trombone, and Dr. Tabatha Easley, flute.  Along with her active performing career she is the area coordinator of the keyboard department and the Director of the Collaborative Piano at Appalachian State University.

Hwa-Jin Kim

Dr. Hwa-Jin Kim was born in Daegu, South Korea, where she began her piano studies at the age of five. At age seven, she was chosen to perform at the MBC Television Station in Daegu. At age fourteen, she debuted as a soloist with the Daegu Symphony Orchestra, performing Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor. She won numerous competitions and entered the prestigious Seoul National University in South Korea on a full scholarship, studying with Dr. Jin-Woo Chung. Upon graduation, she continued her studies at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where she received her Master and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees. She became the youngest faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, teaching piano, music literature, music history, and a class called Reformed Presbyterian Seminary of the East. She also taught at Brown University in Rhode Island. Dr. Kim has performed in South Korea, Italy and many other venues in Boston, Rhode Island, and New York, including the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. After moving to the Asheville/Hendersonville area of North Carolina with her husband, Dr. Paul Kim and their two daughters in the year 2000, Dr. Kim has featured as a soloist in numerous concert series and benefit concerts. She actively works as soloist, chamber musician, lecturer, masterclass clinician, teacher and competition adjudicator.

In 2011, Dr. Kim helped her gifted daughters create the Asheville Young Musicians Club (AYMC), which was composed of highly talented and classically trained student musicians who came together for weekly rehearsals. They presented concerts annually to support local and global causes for education. AYMC raised more than $13,000 in total, which was donated to children’s education in Nicaragua through Vision Nicaragua and music education around the City of Asheville. Under Dr. Kim’s direction, the group’s exceptional performances and interviews were featured on WCQS and WLOS.

To promote classical music in the community, Dr. Kim founded the Asheville Chopin Club in 2016. The organization has also produced successful benefit concerts.

Currently, Dr. Kim serves as a full-time music faculty member at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She teaches Class Piano I & II, Music Theory, Chamber Ensemble and Applied Piano. To help people enjoy classical music in a more relaxed setting, Dr. Kim has launched a monthly lecture series called "Noontime Classical Music with Dr. Kim." She talks about composers’ stories and performs for an open audience sitting on stage close by the piano.

Dr. Kim is the creator and director of the UNC Asheville Summer Piano Camp, hosting students between the 6th and 12th grades since 2018. The UNCA Music Department will hold two Piano Camps in June 2023: the Student Piano Camps and Adult Piano Camps. For more information: https://music.unca.edu/camps/summer-piano-camp/

Michaela Kováčová

A native of the Czech Republic, Michaela Kováčová has established herself as a collaborative pianist and instructor of piano. She performs in a duo with her husband, violist David Kováč. She has appeared in numerous chamber music recitals in the United States and Europe, including a live performance on Kansas Public Radio, Carnegie Hall, and live performances with Boston Conservatory Ballet. Mrs. Kováčová served as a collaborative pianist for the music and ballet departments at the University of Kansas, UMKC Conservatory, and The Smith College Choir.

A dedicated teacher, Mrs. Kováčová joined the ETSU pre-college faculty in 2016 and maintains a private piano studio in Johnson City, TN. As an adjudicator, she served in MTNA, TMTA and UT Knoxville international Piano  Festival and Competition.

Formerly, Mrs. Kováčová taught piano solo, piano ensembles, and chamber music to undergraduate students at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and the Brattleboro Music Center in Vermont.

Mrs. Kováčová received a diploma and graduated with honors from Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava, Czech Republic. She continued her studies in the United States, where she received a Master of Music and the Eugene May Award for outstanding accomplishments as a solo and collaborative pianist at the University of Amherst, Massachusetts, and Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance and collaboration at the University of Kansas.

Mrs. Kováčová lives in Johnson City, TN with her husband David Kováč and their two children Joshua and Eliana.

Leonidas Lagrimas

Dr. Leonidas Lagrimas serves as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at Western Carolina University. His duties include coordinating the Class Piano program and teaching Applied Piano. His performance experience includes multiple collaborative piano appearances at Carnegie Hall, recent solo and collaborative guest artist recitals at UNC-Charlotte, University of North Florida, SUNY-Fredonia, Valdosta State University (GA), Florida College, Livingston College (NC), Wesleyan College (GA), University of Tennessee-Southern (TN), and numerous appearances as a choral and church accompanist throughout the East Coast. Active as a musical theatre accompanist/keyboardist, music director, vocal coach and conductor, his recent regional credits include Little Shop of Horrors for Starring Buffalo! at Shea's 710 Theatre (Buffalo, NY), Rock of Ages and 9 to 5: The Musical for Theatre Tallahassee, In the Heights and American Idiot for New Stage Theatreworks, and numerous community, collegiate, and high school mainstage productions.

Dr. Lagrimas holds National Certification (NCTM) in piano from MTNA, and a Ph.D. in Music Education and Piano Pedagogy from Florida State University. His previous full-time faculty appointments include SUNY-Fredonia and Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, and prior to his doctoral studies he served as a music teacher in the New York City public schools for ten years.

O. Wayne Smith

Dr. Wayne Smith moved to Asheville in 2016 after a long musical career in Kansas City MO as a solo pianist, accompanist, teacher and church organist. He currently serves on the AAPF board and is chair of the benefit concert committee. Wayne is active as a substitute organist/pianist for many churches in Asheville and surrounding towns. He has been piano soloist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Tulsa Philharmonic. Performances in Washington DC include a solo recital for former First Lady, Mrs. Gerald Ford, and a recital at the National Gallery of Art.

Laura Chu Stokes

Laura Chu Stokes has been a pianist and music educator for almost fifty years. A graduate of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in piano performance, Laura has taught hundreds of students in her independent studio and as adjunct faculty at Appalachian State University, as well as the director of ASU’s Community Music School (CMS).

As a performer, Laura has been a staff accompanist at ASU and collaborative artist with her husband, trumpeter James Stokes. She has also performed with the Columbus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras.

In addition to teaching, Laura conducts pedagogy workshops and webinars for E-Z Notes, a full line of music learning tools created and developed by her mother, Lucy Chu. She has been a featured clinician for professional music teacher associations and music dealers/retailers nationally since 1989.

Teresa Sumpter

Dr. Teresa Sumpter has performed, adjudicated, and presented throughout the country. Since 2008 she has been the Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at Mars Hill University where she teaches applied piano, group piano, piano literature, piano pedagogy, music theory, and music history. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Education with an emphasis in Piano Pedagogy and a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma. Her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance is from Ball State University. She also holds a Master’s in Business Administration degree from West Virginia University.

Melanie Foster Taylor

Melanie Foster Taylor  holds degrees in piano performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Marshall University, and the Doctor of Music in piano pedagogy and literature from Indiana University. Her teachers include John Perry, Alfonso Montecino, Kenneth Marchant and Michel Béroff. She was the youngest winner in both the amateur and open divisions of the Young Artist Competition of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, now known as the West Virginia Orchestra. She performed the Saint-Saens 2nd Concerto at the age of 15 and Prokofiev 3rd Concerto when she was 17 years old.

Dr. Taylor is a former president of the South Carolina Music Teachers Association, a clinician for the Music Teachers National Association, holds National Certification by that organization, and has appeared as clinician for the Vermont Music Teachers Association state conference. She has lectured for the College Music Society and the Society for Music Theory and has articles published in the American Music Teacher, Keyboard Companion, The Piano Quarterly, and Journal Seamus. Dr. Taylor was an Intermediate-Advanced Keyboard Editor for Alfred Publishing Company, working closely with Dr. Maurice Hinson on numerous publications. She is a founding member of the internationally award -winning “Ensemble Radieuse” Trio. They have performed on three continents. She was on the faculty at Lamar University, Centenary College of Louisiana, and Converse College.

Melanie’s students have distinguished themselves in statewide, divisional, and young artist competitions. She has promoted performance opportunities for young pianists by establishing numerous composer festivals, concerto competitions, and piano camps. She is presently teaching piano locally.

Douglas Weeks

Steinway Artist Douglas Weeks was Babcock Professor of Piano at Converse and Coordinator of Piano Studies at the Brevard Music Festival. In addition to performing extensively throughout the Southern U.S., he has performed in Europe and Central America as soloist and as pianist in the Converse Trio, and in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia both as soloist and as a violin-piano duo with Furman Professor Dr. Thomas Joiner under the auspices of the US State Department. In spring of 1999, he taught at the Conservatory of Music in Cairo as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, and he returned in 2004 and 2009 to teach at the Conservatory and Helwan University as a Fulbright Senior Specialist.

A prizewinner in the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition (now the Cleveland International Competition), Weeks also competed in the VI International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. A National Patron of Delta Omicron Music Honorary Fraternity, he is a recipient of the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Artist Fellowship in Music, the Kathryne Amelia Brown Award at Converse College for Excellence in Teaching, and a South Carolina Commission on Higher Education’s Distinguished Professor Award. He has presented lecture-recitals at Music Teachers National Association state-wide conferences in South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, and California. Articles by Weeks have appeared in Clavier magazine and in the on-line journal Piano Pedagogy Forum.

Weeks holds the Doctor of Music degree from Florida State University, the Master of Music degree with a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University, a Liçence de Concert from the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, France, and the Bachelor of Music degree from Illinois State University. His teachers include Abbey Simon, Jack Radunsky, Maria Curcio, Sidney Foster, Jules Gentil, and Edward Kilenyi.