Brian Dykstra

Department/Affiliation: Music
Phone: 330-263-2033
Office Address: 211 Scheide
Email: bdykstra@wooster.edu

Degrees

• Doctor of Musical Arts (Piano), Eastman School of Music
• Master of Music (Piano), Eastman School of Music
• Bachelor of Science (Piano), Juilliard School of Music

Courses Taught

• MUSC 132: Piano
• MUSC 232: Piano

Biography, Performance, and Research

Pianist and composer Brian Dykstra is adjunct professor emeritus of piano at The College of Wooster. He served full-time as a faculty member in the Department of Music for 38 years (1969-2007), including 14 years as chair of the Department. He holds the B.S. in Piano from the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, and the M.Mus. and D.Mus.Arts in Piano from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He also attended the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg, Austria as a Fulbright Scholar. As a piano soloist and collaborative pianist, Dykstra has annually given programs of classical music at Wooster and elsewhere. These programs have cumulatively included hundreds of works by a great many composers from the 18th century to the present. As a chamber musician he has participated in many concerts including several in the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank and Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City.

Dykstra has won acclaim for his compositions, now numbering 59, in the concert ragtime genre, and for his ragtime performances and recordings. His rags may be heard on the compact disc Brian Dykstra: Concert Rags (Centaur 2662) featuring pianist Noel Lester, and on Dykstra’s own CD Original Rags. In 1997 his piano rag “Spring Beauties” won first prize in the ragtime composition contest of the Scott Joplin International Foundation, and in 2004 his “Cordova Rag” for flute and piano won first prize in the composition contest of the Greater Cleveland Flute Society. Several members of the Cleveland Orchestra have commissioned him to compose concert rags for chamber ensembles. His Two Rags for Bassoon and Piano are published by International Opus. Many of his piano pieces for children have been published by the Willis Music Co., the Boston Music Co., Centerstream Publications, and Spectrum Music Press.

Currently Dykstra is engaged in a project to record three compact discs—one of classic rags of a century ago, one of his concert rags for piano solo, and one of his rags for wind instruments and piano. Assisting him in the last of these CDs are several Cleveland Orchestra musicians and other wind players in the Cleveland area.