Keyboard Department Faculty

Keiko Sekino

Piano, Chamber music
sekinok@ecu.edu

Pianist Keiko Sekino enjoys an active career as a solo recitalist and chamber musician in the United States and abroad, having performed at such venues as Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, Bennett-Gordon Hall at Ravinia Park, and Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria in Santander, Spain. She has participated in festivals including Ravinia, Norfolk, and Yellow Barn in the United States and Kuhmo, Encuentro de Música y Academia de Santander, La Gesse, and Pontino in Europe.

In 2006, Keiko Sekino was one of four pianists invited to participate in the Carnegie Hall Professional Workshop with Thomas Quasthoff. As a duo with soprano Awet Andemicael, she worked with baritone Thomas Quasthoff and pianist Justus Zeyen on Lieder by Schubert, Wolf, and Strauss in public masterclasses and was presented in a recital at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Her performances have also been featured on WFMT (Chicago)’s From Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute series and on WDAV (Davidson, North Carolina).

An accomplished chamber musician, Ms. Sekino has shared the stage with violinists Ana Chumachenko and MinJung Kang, and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Daedalus Quartet, and Enso Quartet. In 2016, her recording of Schumann’s complete works for cello and piano with cellist Emanuel Gruber was released from Delos label.

Keiko Sekino completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and holds additional degrees from Yale University in economics and music. Among her teachers are Peter Frankl and Robert McDonald. She has also worked closely with Elisso Virsaladze and Claude Frank. She serves as Associate Professor of Piano and Chair of Keyboard Studies at the East Carolina University School of Music.

In 2021, Keiko Sekino was inducted to the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame which recognizes North America’s “most committed and passionate piano educators.”

Kwan Yi

Piano, Chamber music
yik17@ecu.edu

Pianist Kwan Yi has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kimmel Center, Kennedy Center, Chicago Symphony Center, Mann Performing Arts Center, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Library of Congress, Metropolitan and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museums, Großer Sendesaal des Hessischen Rundfunks, Auditorium du Louvre, Teatro Gayarre, Suntory Hall, and Seoul Arts Center.

Yi has appeared as a soloist with the Russian National Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Brevard Festival Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony under the batons of Hans Graf, Julian Kuerti, and Mikhail Tartanikov. As a recitalist and masterclass instructor, he has completed residencies at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Bowling Green State University, University of Georgia, Michigan State University, and University of South Carolina. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, and Roberto Diaz on national tours and was invited to perform at the Kronberg, Ravinia, Trondheim, and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern festivals and Carnegie Hall Presents, Curtis Presents, CIM Mixon Hall Masters, and Peoples’ Symphony Concert series. He has recorded for FHR and Hänssler labels with violinist Itamar Zorman.

A recipient of many honors and prizes, Yi’s awards include Mieczyslaw Munz Prize, National Federation of Music Clubs Award, and prizes at the Fourth Sendai International Piano Competition.

Yi is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School and the Peabody Institute where he worked with Leon Fleisher and Robert McDonald. He currently serves as associate professor of piano at the ECU School of Music.

Samuel Gingher

Piano pedagogy, Class piano
ginghers23@ecu.edu

Dr. Samuel Gingher serves as Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Class Piano at East Carolina University, with previous faculty appointments at Northern Arizona University, Millikin University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Bradley University.  His research interests include classical piano improvisation pedagogy and the discovery and performance of rare masterworks.  Dr. Gingher’s world-premiere recordings of piano trios by Carl Czerny (with Sun-Young Shin and Benjamin Hayek) and four-hand piano fantasies (with Pei-I Wang) can be heard on the Naxos label.

Dr. Gingher has been the winner of several competitions and recipient of many awards, including the Krannert Debut Artist Award, first prize in Brevard Music Festival’s International Solo Piano Competition, first prize in WVU’s Intersection between Jazz and Classical solo piano festival competition, the 21st Century Piano Commission Competition at UIUC, and concerto competition winner at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra Young Artist’s concerto competition in Georgia, to highlight a few.  He has performed and taught in piano and chamber music festivals in North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, California, Arizona, West Virginia, Austria and Switzerland, and has played in a variety of new music, chamber and jazz groups.  Dr. Gingher was the keyboardist in Urbana-Champaign’s local jazz group, Almost “A” Quintet for many years.  Dr. Gingher is an active member of MTNA and has served as a clinician and adjudicator for MTNA conferences in North Carolina, Illinois, Arizona and New Mexico.

Dr. Gingher has additional experience as a composer, arranger and free-lance audio engineer, having served as engineer or producer for albums on Naxos, Centaur, Albany and MSR Classics labels.  Sam holds a DMA in Piano Performance and Literature, MM in Piano Pedagogy and MM in Piano Performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and BM in Piano Performance from UNC-Chapel Hill.  His former piano teachers include Timothy Ehlen, Thomas Otten, Edmund Paolantonio and Constance Kotis.