Keyboard Studies
Piano
As a piano major at Mercer, you may enroll in any of the degree programs offered in the Townsend School of Music and prepare for a career in performance, music education or sacred music. Whatever your chosen degree, the piano faculty will strive to develop your technical knowledge and artistry on the piano to the highest level.
Your performance skills will be developed in weekly lessons, weekly concert practices and departmental recitals. Your musicianship skills will be enhanced by regular participation in collaborative performances. Piano students often accompany within the School of Music and receive compensation through appropriate scholarship allocations. Opportunities to perform chamber music are also readily available.
As a piano major enrolled in the Bachelor of Music in Performance degree program, you will participate in classes that will specifically develop your knowledge and skills in accompanying techniques, piano pedagogy and piano literature. To enhance this development, Mercer piano majors are encouraged to teach -- with compensation -- in the School of Music's Preparatory Program.
Exceptional Steinway concert grand pianos are housed in Newton Hall and the Recital Hall on the University campus, and a new Steinway concert grand is in the Grand Opera House, a performing arts venue of Mercer University.
For more information on keyboard studies, contact Dr. John N. Roberts at roberts_jn@mercer.edu or Dr. Ian Altman at (478) 301-2510.
Organ and Harpsichord
As a major in organ and harpsichord studies at Mercer, you will be equipped technically and musically for a career in sacred music, performance or music education. You will receive weekly lessons from seasoned faculty who are expert performers in both church-related and concert settings.
In organ and harpsichord studies, you will perform music from all stylistic periods and nationalities. Your studies will follow a chronological path through three centuries of keyboard literature as you build your technique and expand your knowledge of the instruments. With systematic instruction, you will also study the art of improvisation as an organist and harpsichordist.
You will have excellent performance opportunities in both concert practice and departmental recitals with several options of organs with mechanical playing action, including the beautiful and versatile 52-rank Holtkamp tracker organ in Newton Hall. Richards, Fowkes and Co. Op. 2 and Op. 3 organs are also located in the McCorkle Music Building, and you will have access to a wide range of non-mechanical instruments in the Macon area.
For more information on organ and harpsichord studies, contact Dr. Robert Parris at parris_rw@mercer.edu.