Pianist Shoko Nakamura Kinsella enjoys her work as an Adjunct Professor of Piano at University of Texas Pan-American.  She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (2010), where she worked under the instruction of the artist-pedagogue Robert Weirich.  She earned her Master’s (2006) and Bachelor’s (2004, magna cum laude) degrees in Piano Performance from University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as a student of William Black and Michael Chertock, where she was nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award.  She has worked with renowned artists including Jerome Lowenthal, Awadagin Pratt, Doris Pridonoff Lehnert, Anthony de Mare, Ivan Moravec, the Amernet Quartet, Cho-Liang Lin, Anne-Akiko Meyers, William Grubb, and Yuhuda Hanani.

Dr. Kinsella has performed extensively as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in the United States, Italy, and Japan.  She has appeared with Jefferson City Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #4, op. 58, as well as University of Cincinnati Orchestra Club with Mozart’s Piano Concerto #17 in G major.  Her most recent awards include first prize in the 2009 Jefferson City Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, first prize in the 2007 Artist Presentation Society Competition in St. Louis.  Her chamber music appearances include a guest artist residency at Western Illinois University, Earlham College in Indiana, Johnson County Community College in Kansas City (live performance broadcasted by 91.5 Kansas Public Radio), Summer Opera and Music Festival in Lucca Italy, and numerous collaborative appearances with orchestras and new music ensembles in Cincinnati (“It’s New to You” Contemporary Music Ensemble) and Kansas City (Musica Nova).   

As a teacher, Dr. Kinsella has held fellowships and teaching assistantships in applied and class piano at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she worked with pedagogues Michelle Conda and Diane Petrella.  Additionally, she was a faculty member of the UMKC Community Music and Dance Academy from 2007-2010.  Prior to moving to the United States to continue her musical education, Dr. Kinsella earned a degree in American Literature from Kyoritsu Women’s College in Tokyo and taught high school English for two years.

Born in Chiba, Japan, Dr. Kinsella currently resides in McAllen, TX, with her husband, Brendan.  Her upcoming and past concert engagements include a debut recital in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in October 2010, and lecture recitals on the history of the pianist-composers in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.  Committed to the performance of new solo and chamber works, she joined the guest artist faculty of the soundSCAPE New Music Festival in Maccagno, Italy in 2010.  In March 2012, she performed in Valley Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Concert Series, presenting her all-transcription program of Schubert/Rachmaninoff, Schubert/Godowsky, and Verdi/Liszt.