John Villaveces
Collaborative Piano
John Villaveces began studying the piano at age five. As a soloist, Mr. Villaveces was the winner of the concerto-aria competition at UMKC and at UT-Knoxville, a finalist in the MTNA Steinway Collegiate Artists Competition, and was selected as a winner in the Young Artist’s Competition in Taipei, Taiwan. His academic awards include the Press Scholar Award and most outstanding student in music award at UT-Knoxville.
As collaborator, Mr. Villaveces has performed recitals with university faculty and artists such as Benny Kim and Carter Enyeart from UMKC, Richard Beene from the Colburn School, Eric Kim from Indiana University, and Christopher Wu from the Pittsburgh Symphony. He spent his past three summers in Ottawa, KS as a faculty pianist among such distinguished teachers as Brian Lewis, Stephen Clapp, Ayako Yonetani, and Simon James. As chamber musician, Mr. Villaveces has enjoyed playing as a fellow at Kneisel Hall and at the Sunflower Chamber Music Festival. This Fall he is engaged to play in the Ruel Joyce Recital Series at Johnson County Community College and will perform the Chausson Concerto for Piano, Violin, and String Quartet for the St. Joseph Symphony Chamber Concert in November.
John Villaveces is a Doctor of Musical Arts Candidate in Piano Performance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he held Graduate Teaching Assistantships in Opera Productions as well as Keyboard Skills Classes and Applied Piano Instruction. His principle teachers are Robert Weirich, David Northington, Gregory Partain, and Nathaniel Patch. He currently is the artist-in-residence collaborative pianist at the University of Central Missouri.