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Kevin Class

Professor of Collaborative Piano
Music Director of Opera Theatre
Director of Collaborative Piano

[email protected]

Born in Belgium, pianist and conductor Kevin Class studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, as well as in the U.S and Canada. As a pianist, teachers have included Romeo Fracalanza, Ralph Votapek, Gyorgy Sebok and Daniel Blumenthal. In 1997, the Belgian government named Kevin a Fellow of the Flemish Community in recognition both of his performances of the complete Piano Sonatas of Mozart and Schubert, and for his contributions to the performance and promotion of contemporary music, with Jan-Marisse Huizing describing him as “an important ambassador for today’s composers”.

Kevin has made more than 15 commercial recordings, including piano concerti by Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart and Schumann as soloist with the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra, several albums as a collaborative pianist with saxophonists Timothy McAllister and James Romain, cellist Wesley Baldwin, violinists Francisco Caban and Juhi Kee, soprano Soo Yeon Kim and others. He has also recorded several albums of solo piano works by Chopin, Schumann, Liszt’s complete Annees de Pelerinage, and an acclaimed recording of Elliott Carter’s Piano Sonata.. Fanfare Magazine has described Kevin’s playing as “exceptionally refined” and American Record Guide described his work as “provocative and impressive, simply impeccable.”

Kevin was a top-prize winner in Young Keyboard Artists International Piano Competition, 1991 Mozart Piano Competition, Munich ARD and, most recently, the American Prize Competition. He was invited by Murray Perahia to perform an all-Chopin program at Reinbeck Castle for the Schleswig-Holstein Festival as part of the “Young Elites of Murray Perahia” classes with Perahia proclaiming that Kevin “is a poet who serves a deeply musical sensibility.”

Following Kevin’s performances at the Leeds International Piano Competition, Class received invitations to perform recitals in France, Switzerland, and Austria, including Vienna’s Musikverein. He has given solo recitals in numerous important venues worldwide, including Leeds’ Town Hall, Geneva’s Ansermet Hall, Munich’s Grosse Saal of the Hochschule fur Musik, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and six performances in New York’s Carnegie Hall. His sold-out solo recital performances in Chongqing and Chengdu, China were broadcast nationally by China’s national network CCTV.

In addition to work as a piano soloist, Kevin has been active for more than 30 years as an orchestra and opera conductor. Having begun studies of the violin at the age of three, Kevin’s study of conducting began while he was a violinist with several regional orchestras in Canada. At the age of 15, he began studying conducting with Zdzislaw Kopac in London, Ontario, finding himself on the podiums of several orchestras while still a teenager. Subsequent conducting mentors and instructors include Eduardo Diazmunos, Frank Shipway, Gustav Meier, Mario Bernardi and Carl St. Clair.

With a repertoire of more than 65 operas, Kevin has taken the podium of the National Opera La Monnaie in Brussels, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and the National Opera Studio in London, Shanghai Opera and Opera Illinois (Peoria). He has served as Music Director/Conductor of the Illinois Opera Theatre in Champaign-Urbana, Opera Illinois (Peoria), Seoul Opera (South Korea), Arezzo Opera Festival (Italy), and since 2018 Berlin Opera and Saluzzo Opera academies.

With a large repertoire and passion for orchestral literature, Kevin has enjoyed conducting many orchestras in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Described by Arthur Fagan as “an excellent trainer of orchestras,” Kevin has been instrumental in refining work with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Illinois New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Noir’ (Brussels) and orchestras in Taipei (Taiwan), Shanghai, Chongqing, and Kunming (China), Seoul (South Korea), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and Manila (The Philippines). In 2009, Kevin conducted the inaugural orchestra concert of Chongqing’s iconic Grand Theatre in China.

He has also helped train numerous young conductors who have subsequently appeared with orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Miami Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Orchestra and opera houses including the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London, Paris Opera, Staatskapelle Weimar and Aachen, and Chicago Lyric Opera.

Kevin is particularly invested in the education of young musicians in Asia. For nearly two decades, he has been a frequent visitor to South Korea, China, Taiwan, The Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. He has been a recurring guest of Yonsei University in Seoul as well as the University of Philippines in Manila. He has taught masterclasses and workshops at Shanghai and Sichuan Conservatories, classes on the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven at Hebei Normal University in China, and several universities in South Korea and Taiwan. He regularly gives residencies teaching masterclasses for pianists, conductors, singers and working with orchestras and wind ensembles. He was a member of the jury for the grand finals of the 2018 Indonesia Steinway Piano Competition and as an artistic consultant for several of Asia’s leading orchestras and music festivals.

Kevin is currently Music Director & Conductor of Opera Theatre at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, as well as Professor of Collaborative Piano. He has served on the piano faculty of SUNY-Potsdam and the opera conducting faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

He has been profiled in the media by the BBC, NPR, PBS, Radio Noord Holland, KBS (Korea), CCTV (China), and locally by WUOT and East Tennessee PBS.

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Eileen Downey

Distinguished Lecturer of Collaborative Piano and Vocal Coach | [email protected]

Eileen Downey is currently Distinguished Lecturer of Collaborative Piano at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where she is a vocal coach and collaborative pianist, as well as a rehearsal pianist for Knoxville Opera. She will be traveling to Austria this summer to be a vocal coach for the AIMS in Graz program. In January of 2021, she served as Music Director for An Opera for Terezín, an international experimental production of Liliane Atlan’s play involving groups from Israel, France, and the United States. Prior to cancellations due to Covid-19, Eileen was engaged to be a pianist for the National Association of Teachers of Singing National Conference and the American Viola Society Festival during the summer of 2020.

Ms. Downey held the positions of chorusmaster, vocal coach, and most recently Music Director for the Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music Center for the summer seasons of 2013-14, and 2016-19. She has been an accompanist for the Middle/East Tennessee Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions since 2012, and has also been a pianist for the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference and the Tennessee Cello Workshop. Eileen is an alumna of the Merola Opera Program, and worked as a staff accompanist for AIMS in Graz in 2011. Other programs in which she has been involved include Opera North, SongFest, Aspen Opera Theater Center, Project Canción Española, and the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Italy. Ms. Downey received a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance and a Master’s Degree in Collaborative Piano from Michigan State University.

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