Location: Check with event organizer
Presenting District: Eugene
Presenter: Dr. Stephen Lewis, NCTM

Program Description: We will look in depth at the four senses that aid us in learning and performing music: hearing, sight, touch, and proprioception. Dr. Lewis will talk about current scientific understandings of how our brains and bodies process these senses and how we can teach, practice, and perform better if we engage with all of these senses in a conscious manner.

Presenter Bio: Dr. Stephen Lewis, NCTM, is a pianist, composer, conductor, and music teacher living in Portland, Oregon. Stephen performs traditional piano music with a composer’s urgent, expressive power, while bringing to avant-garde and experimental music a classical concert pianist’s devotion to beautiful sound.

Stephen has performed with the Oregon Symphony, 45th Parallel Universe, Third Angle, Fear No Music’s Young Composers Project, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and Cascadia Composers. He has performed in venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Miller Theater, Severance Hall, and the San Diego Museum of Art. As a composer, Stephen has been commissioned by Red Fish Blue Fish, Diagenesis Duo, the Wellesley Composers Conference, and soundSCAPE.

Stephen teaches private piano and composition lessons from his home studio in southeast Portland. He also coaches professional musicians, music teachers, and composers in learning advanced repertoire and skills and in completing major creative projects. He earned a D.M.A. in Contemporary Piano Performance in 2017, and a Ph.D. in Composition in 2015 from the University of California San Diego. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Composition and Piano Performance) in 2006.