High School Keyboard Day 2026
James Douglass
As a collaborative pianist, James Douglass has been involved in genres as diverse as chamber music, vocal arts, opera, choral arts, symphonic repertoire, jazz, cabaret, and musical theater. In 2005, he joined the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is currently Professor of Collaborative Piano, Director of the Collaborative Piano degrees program (MM, DMA), chamber music coach, and vocal coach. He has also served in the capacities of Keyboard Studies Area Chair and Artistic Director of the UNCG School of Music Collage Chamber Series. Over the course of his teaching career, Douglass has taught courses/private instruction in collaborative piano, introduction to collaborative piano for undergraduates, diction (German, French, Italian), opera history, vocal literature, art song performance, chamber music performance, and piano/strings chamber literature. Previous positions and/or teaching responsibilities have been held at Mississippi College, Occidental College (Los Angeles), The University of Southern California, and Middle Tennessee State University. From 2004 to 2024, Douglass has taught for most summers at the AIMS in Graz summer music program, where he has served as either a coach in the lieder program or as the instructor of the collaborative piano studio. From 2012-17, he was the co-founder and artistic director of the art song division of Greensboro Light Opera and Song, a summer performance program based at UNCG and involving young singers from around the United States.
Currently active as a recitalist, clinician, and adjudicator, his performances as a collaborative pianist have included concerts across the United States, Europe, and China in venues such as Carnegie Weill Hall and the Liszt Academy in Budapest. Broadcasts of his performances have taken place on radio and/or television stations in Los Angeles, Nashville, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Wales National Television. He has released two recordings with soprano Hope Koehler of the songs of John Jacob Niles (Albany and ASE labels and available through all major online outlets), also with whom he has prepared and edited a volume of previously unpublished songs of Niles. In addition, among several recording projects in process, he has most recently released a recording of the song cycle Das stille Leuchten of Othmar Schoeck with the late mezzosoprano Clara O’Brien for the record label Ablaze. As a staunch advocate of new/contemporary music, Douglass performs as a regular member of Forecast Music and Blue Mountain Ensemble, both based in the Triad region of North Carolina, both maintaining active schedules of commissioning and performing.
Marya Fancey
Scholar-performer Marya Fancey uses her research to bridge temporal and cultural gaps in music for students and audiences. She received a 2017–2018 Fulbright Student Research Award to Poland for Historical Music Performance. This grant supported her dissertation research on organ masses from the Tablature of Johannes of Lublin (ca. 1540), culminating in a performance of its three mass cycles with vocal ensemble Flores Rosarum at the fifteenth-century Church of the Holy Cross in Krakow. She has presented at meetings of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America and the SE chapter of the American Musicological Society.
Her concert programs frequently incorporate works by underappreciated composers. In 2016 Marya Fancey introduced Polish audiences to the music of Florence Price and David Hurd at the Podlaskie Organ Festival and the 18th International Festival of Organ Music at Pelplin Cathedral. She gave the 2015 world premiere of Passacaglia and Triple Fugue (organ) by Louise Talma. In 2011 she performed Sonata No. 2 (piano) by Grażyna Bacewicz at the 15th Annual Festival of Women Composers (Gainesville, FL).
In studio and classroom teaching she augments the traditional classical canon with lesser-known compositions as well as works from a variety of other musical styles. She has taught music studies courses at UNCG, Guilford College, and the University of Florida. Her past professional activities include apprentice organ builder, church organist and choir director, private music teacher, and assistant music editor.
Marya Fancey holds the DMA degree in Organ Performance from UNC-Greensboro, where she studied with André Lash (organ) and Andrew Willis (harpsichord and fortepiano), with a Post-Master’s certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy and a Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Historical Keyboard Performance. Her interest in the scholar-performer model arose from masterclasses with Marie-Claire Alain, Olivier Latry, John Grew, William Porter, Hank Knox, and Edoardo Bellotti at multiple McGill Summer Organ Academies between 2005 and 2015.
Alessandra Feris
Praised for her artistry and passion, Brazilian pianist Alessandra Feris has established a distinguished career as a performer, pedagogue, and advocate for Latin-American piano music. She has performed widely across South America, Central America, Mexico, Europe, and the United States, with successful solo debuts in major venues including the Theatro São Pedro in Porto Alegre (Brazil), the Costa Rican National Theater, the Steinway Haus in Frankfurt (Germany), the Palácio de Bellas Artes (Sala Manuel M. Ponce) in Mexico City, and the Auditório León de Greiff in Bogotá, Colombia.
Alessandra Feris holds a bachelor’s degree from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, an Artist Diploma from the University of Music Franz Liszt in Germany, a master’s degree from the University of Iowa, and a doctoral degree from Florida State University. Her major teachers include Dirce Knijnik, Thomas Steinhöfel, Réne Lecuona, Read Gainsford, and the legendary Lazar Berman.
Committed to excellence in teaching, Dr. Feris has received the John Simms Piano Award at the University of Iowa, the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at Florida State University, and the Mississippi Humanities Council Teacher of the Year Award. A sought-after pedagogue, she has been a guest adjudicator for various national and international competitions, including the Lancaster International Piano Competition, the Hyatt Piano Competition, the Pianissimo Piano Competition in Colombia, and the Piano Latinoamericano Competition in Costa Rica. Her students have frequently won piano competitions such as the South Dakota MTNA Young Artist, SDMTA Collegiate Piano, Truran Piano Competition, and the University of South Dakota Concerto Competition.
Her guest-artist engagements include masterclasses and performances at universities and conservatories worldwide, including the Colburn School, Bowling Green State University, Purdue University, University of Nevada-Reno, Radford University, Texas Woman’s University, Goshen College, Irvine Valley College, University of Arizona, Washington State University, University of Kansas, University of Central Florida, Louisiana State University, Montclair State University, North Dakota State University, Auburn University, University of Southern Mississippi, Kansas State University, Huntingdon College, University of North Dakota, Chadron State College, University of South Alabama, University of Montevallo, Southern University, Wayne State University, University of Costa Rica, University of Aveiro in Portugal, University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, Ionian University in Greece, Royal Birmingham Conservatory in England, National University of Music in Peru and several universities in Colombia and Brazil.
Alessandra Feris is devoted to the diffusion of Latin-American piano music and has been a guest performer at the Trester Festival for Latin-American Music at the University of Arizona, the Latin-American Piano Festival at Texas A&M University in Commerce, the Ibero-American Festival Cinco Sentidos in Jena, Germany, and the Brasilien trifft Berlin Festival. She is a passionate contemporary pianist and is often invited to premiere works by living composers. Recent premieres include Love Letters by Steven Sacco, Wissenschaftsgläubigkeit by Paul Lombardi, and Mni Wiconi by Jeffrey Paul.
Dr. Feris has recently joined the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Assistant Professor of Piano. She has previously served as Associate Professor of Piano at the University of South Dakota and Piano Faculty/Artist-in-Residence at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. She is an artist-teacher at the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and the Lancaster International Piano Festival in Pennsylvania.
Annie Jeng
Hailed for her “brilliant pianism” (Gramophone) and “acrobatic” performances (Take Effect), Taiwanese-American pianist Annie Jeng has performed and taught widely as an educator, soloist, and chamber musician. She approaches musicmaking and teaching as a tool to discover shared humanity and strives to explore ways to dismantle traditional expectations of “good” music through unique programming and interdisciplinary performances. As an advocate for living composers and embracing the creative process, she has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works and is the pianist of several contemporary chamber ensembles including Khemia Ensemble, earspace ensemble, and Sounding Board. Khemia Ensemble (khemiaensemble.com) released their sophomore album, “Intersections,”’ with PARMA Recordings featuring new works for the 8-member ensemble. Other collaborative projects include a 3-D interactive animation titled “Keys” with UNCG Animation Professor, Dan Hale, and “Rachmaninoff” from Master Christopher’s Music Desegregation visual album blending Rachmaninoff’s piano concerti with rap and drum set.
Annie has published her research as a regular writer for the column, “Teaching Tomorrow Today” published in American Music Teachers journal, and as the co-creator of the Frances Clark Center online course “Hidden Gems: Four Centuries of Piano Music by Women Composers.” Her latest commissioning project published by Just a Theory Press, Circles and Lines, consists of new pedagogical works by women composers that introduces contemporary piano techniques to intermediate pianists. Annie has presented at Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) conferences at collegiate, state, and national levels, the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP), and College Music Society (CMS) conferences. Annie is also Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit, A Seat at the Piano (ASAP) (aseatatthepiano.com), a resource dedicated to the promotion of inclusion in the performance and study of solo piano repertoire, and 2023 recipient of the MTNA Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award. She is the current President of Greensboro Music Teachers Association (GMTA) and serves on the board for the North Carolina Music Teachers Association (NCMTA).
Annie received her DMA in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Michigan, where she also received her MM. She earned her BM in Piano Performance with a minor in Public Health from New York University. Her primary teachers have included Logan Skelton, José Ramón Mendez, Miyoko Lotto, Anne-Marie McDermott, and Faye Bonner. She is currently Associate Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In her free time, Annie enjoys hiking, kayaking, and discovering the wonders of the outdoors.