Dr. Lesley McAllister

Professor of Piano
Director of the Keyboard Division
Director of Piano Pedagogy

Piano Pedagogy

Lesley McAllister, D.M.A., is Professor of Piano, Director of Piano Pedagogy, and Director of Keyboard Studies at Baylor University. In addition to teaching piano pedagogy, she also teaches courses on performer wellness and class piano and directs the Piano Laboratory Program for children in the community. Dr. McAllister holds degrees in performance from the University of Houston as a student of Nancy Weems and an MM from Florida State University, as well as a DMA in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, where she studied with Jane Magrath. Her research interests include imagery, mind-body relaxation techniques for performance anxiety, mental rehearsal, and yoga for musicians. In 2019, she was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award in Research for Tenured Professors at Baylor University, and received a Centennial Professor Award in 2021 to assist with the development of an elementary-level piano method book utilizing mindful movement. An active clinician, she has presented at such national conferences as the Music Teachers National Association, National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, the Performing Arts Medicine Association international symposium, the Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy (GP3) Forum, and the College Music Society, as well as the International Society of Music Educators international conference. Published several times in American Music Teacher, she was awarded the 2010 “Article of the Year" award by the Music Teachers National Association. She has also been published in Piano Magazine, Piano Pedagogy Forum, and the MTNA E-Journal. Previously the chair of the editorial board for the MTNA E-Journal, she currently serves as the Wellness Column Editor for Piano Magazine.  A certified RYT-200 yoga instructor, she is author of two books on musician wellness: The Balanced Musician: Integrating Mind and Body for Peak Performance and Yoga in the Music Studio, which was published by Oxford Press in 2020. Dr. McAllister serves as the Faculty-in-Residence for Texana House, an all-female residence hall at Baylor. She was honored with the Collegiate Teacher of the Year Award from the Texas Music Teachers Association in 2022.

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