Chris Jerger maintains equipment and records all of the music recitals and concerts.
As the piano technician, Dave Conte is responsible for keeping the roughly 125 pianos maintained and at the ready for use; whether needed for performance in the auditoriums, in teaching studios or practice rooms.
Dave completed his technical training at The University of North Texas College of Music, where he received his degree in Piano Technology. Prior to his arrival at UT School of Music, Dave owned and operated a respected private tuning, service and rebuilding concern where he was in practice for over 28 years. He has studied with Steinway and Sons, with Yamaha where he completed their training as an independent and graduated at the top of the class, participating in the final, prestigious “Little Red Schoolhouse” class. At Baldwin Piano, he received their coveted Concert and Artist Certification and maintained the artist pool pianos for the south-central region. He was also a Petrof Piano dealer and concert technician, and trained with Bosendorfer, Seiler, C. Bechstein, Kawai and other manufacturers, and was on call at various performance venues including The Dallas Opera, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, The Van Cliburn Piano Competition, Fort Worth Opera and for various artists, including among others: Vladimir Viardo, Michael Feinstein, Bruce Hornsby, Dongni Xie, Neil Diamond, Dino Kartsonakis, Dan Fogelberg, John Tesh and B.B. King.
Dave believes in using his considerable talents by also passing along what was so generously given him. To that end he worked to pass all the tests and exams to become a Registered Piano Technician with The Piano Technicians Guild so that he could also become an instructor, and has become PTG certified as a tuning and technical examiner for the Registered Piano Technician exams. Continuing his passion for teaching, Dave became an Instructor in Piano Technology at Tarrant County College which required developing the curriculum for the class he taught there. He also founded the North Texas School of Piano Technology which was operating as one of the last “brick-and-mortar” hands-on academies left in the USA until his departure to serve at UT.
Taking pride in calling Knoxville their new home are his wife, Sherllyn, daughter Allegra and son Benjamin.
Nathan Fleshner’s research focuses on the portrayal of mental illness, trauma, and the therapeutic process in music. He is interested in songs used as medical narratives to describe artists’ psychological and therapeutic experiences and has published and presented on songs by Adele, Tori Amos, Eminem, Linkin Park, Dave Matthews Band, Maren Morris, Prince Paul, Malvina Reynolds, Robert Schumann, Townes Van Zandt, and Kanye West. He is also interested in conscious and unconscious thought processes: in particular, the therapeutic, music analytic, and creative processes and how they interact. An avid Seinfeld fan, he has written two book chapters on music in the show.
He has presented papers at national and international music analysis and other disciplinary conferences, including the Society for Music Theory, the Society for Music Analysis, the International Association for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland, the Eighth European Music Analysis Conference in Leuven, Belgium, the Ninth European Music Analysis Conference in Strasbourg, France, the Second International Conference on Music and Consciousness in Oxford, England, and Tracking the Creative Process in Music in Lisbon, Portugal. His research has been published in multiple journals and the edited volumes, Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play, The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music, and For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt.
He authors the column, “Do You Hear That Too? Music and the Medical Humanities” for the website, The Polyphony, associated with the Institute for the Medical Humanities at Durham University, UK. The column explores musicians and their music through the lens of mental health and the broader field of medicine, including analyses of specific works and connections between fields of music and medicine.
PhD, Music Theory – Eastman School of Music (2012)
MM, Music Theory – Baylor University (2005)
MM, Cello Performance – University of Houston (2001)
BM, Music Education – Baylor University (1999)