5th Annual Trester Festival for Latin American Piano Music

Guest Artists

Oscar Macchioni
University of North Texas

Oscar Macchioni, a native of Argentina, is an accomplished solo and collaborative pianist, professor, lecturer, author, and adjudicator. Critics have praised his clarity of lines, tone quality, expressive phrasing, and the amiable way he presents his programs.

Oscar has performed extensively in his native Argentina, Italy, England, Poland, Serbia, Turkey, Mexico, and the USA, at notable locations such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Teacher’s College at Columbia University, Steinway Hall, St Martin in the Fields and James’s Piccadilly in London, the Querceto International Piano Festival in Italy, and the National Conservatory in Argentina. His live performance in the esteemed Myra Hess Memorial Concerts at the Chicago Cultural Center has been broadcast on radio and television. His programs include an eclectic repertoire from Bach and Brahms to Piazzolla and Bolcom. He is an assiduous performer of classical Latin American repertoire.A dedicated teacher and mentor, Dr. Macchioni is much in demand as an adjudicator at various state, national, and international piano competitions and festivals, including the Bangkok International Chopin Competition, the European Piano Teachers Association, Piano Examinations Committee of Taiwan, MTNA, and the International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival among others. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Borderland Chopin International Competition and Festival. His lecture-recitals and presentations at international conferences have received numerous accolades, including the Outstanding Musical Presentation at Second International Vernacular Conference in Puebla, Mexico and Diploma of Excellence at the European Piano Teachers Association, World Piano Conference in Serbia.

His book, The Tango in American Piano Music, was published in 2010 by the College Music Society’s Cultural Expressions in Music series. His debut CD, Mostly Tangos: Piano Music from the Americas, has been released with favorable reviews by Eroica Classical Records. Centaur Records released his albums, Piazzolla da Camera and Latin American Duos. He has published articles on a variety of piano literature and piano pedagogy topics in the American Teacher Magazine, Piano Pedagogy Forum, and Piano Inspires. He has been featured in Piano: La Lettre du Musicien (France), Piano Education Page (USA), and various music magazines, radio, and T.V. programs.

In 2015, Oscar received the most prestigious University of Texas System teaching award, the “Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award,” and in 2019, he was inducted into the “UTEP Academy of Distinguished Teachers.” He has been sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.C. (graduate researcher), the Polish Government, the Organization of American States, and the Leschetizky Association of New York. He received the Music Teachers National Association “StAr Award,” and was named “Distinguished Graduate Student” by the University of Arizona. He is a recipient of several grants, most recently the Texas Commission on the Arts through the El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department, to perform concerts in underserved communities. He studied piano at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (Argentina), the Krakow Academy of Music (Poland), Louisiana State University, and the University of Arizona (USA). Oscar is a tenured Associate Professor of Piano Pedagogy at the University of North Texas College of Music. Previously, he was a full tenured Professor of Piano, Assistant Chair, and Keyboard Area Coordinator at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he held the Bonnie Brooks Professorship in Music. Oscar Macchioni is a Steinway Artist.