Dr. Hendry Wijaya

Dr. Hendry Wijaya first attracted attention in 1996 when he won Artists International's Young Artist Piano Award and made his critically acclaimed New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall. “Hendry Wijaya may well be one of the greatest pianists to come out of Indonesia today,” wrote The Observer.

He began his musical training at the age of two with his mother and gave his first public performance at the age of four, which was broadcast on national radio. In 1992, a scholarship from the Manhattan School of Music brought him to the United States, where he studied with Constance Keene and earned the Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees. His other influential teachers include Herbert Stessin, Robert Weirich, Jung-Ja Kim, and Elly Lim. He received numerous awards and scholarships, including the Dora Zaslavsky Koch Piano Scholarship, the LeBauer Scholarship, the Manhattan School of Music Presidential Merit Scholarship, and the Baldwin Piano Award.

Widely recognized as a dedicated teacher and mentor, Dr. Wijaya has guided students to success in both higher education and international competitions. His students have been accepted into prestigious institutions including the Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, Anton Bruckner University, the Royal College of Music, and the Royal Northern College of Music. They have also earned top prizes at numerous national and international competitions, including the Liszt Garrison International Piano Competition, the Southeast Asia International Chopin Piano Competition, the Yamaha National Piano Competition, the ASEAN International Concerto Competition, the Empire State Piano Competition, the Alberti International Piano Competition, and the Hong Kong International Music Festival.

In addition to his performing and teaching activities, Dr. Wijaya is the author of an advice column for Staccato, a monthly music education magazine in Indonesia. He has also been featured in a live 60-minute television interview for Voice of America. On his tour to Russia as a guest performer and judge for a music festival, the local newspaper wrote: “Hendry Wijaya demonstrates that he is a unique interpreter of Debussy and Chopin's music. The rich and sophisticated timbres, extraordinary dynamic palette, and super-virtuosity made his performance a memorable event in the city's music scene."

He is Head of the Piano Department at the Westminster Conservatory of Music in Princeton and Artistic Director of the Elly Lim Conservatory of Music in Jakarta. He currently serves as MTNA Eastern Division Director and is a Past President of both the New York State Music Teachers Association (NYSMTA) and the New Jersey Music Teachers Association (NJMTA). In recognition of his contributions to the profession, he received the NYSMTA Citation Award and the MTNA Foundation Fellow Award, one of the association's highest honors recognizing significant contributions to music teaching. A Nationally Certified Teacher of Music as administered by the Music Teachers National Association, he is also a frequent adjudicator for local, national, and international piano competitions, having served on the juries of the Alberti International Piano Competition, the Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, and the World Pianist Invitational International Competition, among others.

Dr. Richard Shuster

American pianist, Richard Shuster, DMA, is Professor of Music and Director of Piano Studies at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas.

Richard Shuster is a versatile pianist and a dedicated pedagogue and mentor to a diverse class of piano students majoring in piano performance, piano pedagogy, music therapy, music education and liberal arts-music. His student-centered teaching integrates a natural approach to technique and focuses on injury prevention, sound/color production, and musical style. In addition to applied piano, Shuster teaches piano literature courses, chamber music, accompanying, and class piano. He also directs Hungarian Music, a 2-week study-abroad course in Budapest, Hungary. Shuster was awarded a Fulbright Scholar Grant to teach piano literature courses at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary in 2019.

Shuster is in demand as a guest teacher and adjudicator, and he is an active performer of a wide range of solo and chamber repertoire. He has performed the piano music of Gabriel Fauré extensively in the U.S. and abroad and was a featured performer at the Focus on Piano Literature: Gabriel Fauré conference at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.  

“Last but hardly least, pianist Richard Shuster gave a presentation of the Nocturnes, playing six of them while significantly enhancing his listeners’ awareness and appreciation of the magic Fauré wrought in them across a 46-year period, starting around 1875. Stunning.” – John Lambert, Classical Voice of North Carolina

Shuster’s most recent CD, Gabriel Fauré: The Complete Nocturnes was released on the Fleur de Son label to great critical acclaim.

“Shuster… seems totally at home with this idiom. He brings each to life and has no technical limitations. There is an insight here that only a master musician can bring. Singing melodies, complex chromatic harmonies, and a surprising amount of counterpoint are all balanced and shaped… Shuster’s legato playing serves the beautiful melodic sections very well. It is rare to hear a disc so captivating… I will return to this often.”  ­­– James Harrington, American Record Guide

In addition to performing solo repertoire, Shuster is an accomplished chamber music performer and regularly collaborates on works large and small with accomplished musicians in the North Texas region. He has performed with a number of local established groups including Mount Vernon Music’s Orchard Ensemble and with musicians of the Fort Worth Symphony on the Spectrum Chamber Music Society concert series.

“C’est l’heure exquise,” the singer sings in the third number of Gabriel Fauré’s  La bonne chanson (“The Good Song”). And so it was Wednesday evening at Texas Woman’s University’s Margo Jones Hall, as tenor Derek Chester and pianist Richard Shuster presented as exquisite an hour’s worth of music as could be imagined...the two musicians shared rare sensitivity to texts, textures and harmonic subtleties.” – Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

Recently, Shuster was featured as a guest soloist with the Texas Woman’s University choirs in a rare performance of Enrique Granados’ Cant de les Estrelles, a colossal work for piano solo, triple chorus, and organ.

Shuster has served as guest teacher and adjudicator at a variety of institutions in the United States and abroad including the week-long Seattle Young Artists Music Festival. He spent one month teaching, performing, and leading curriculum development activities at St. Paul University Manila, Philippines as a Fulbright Specialist. He presented a session on the online pedagogy practicum of his hybrid piano pedagogy class at the Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum (GP3) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been a guest teacher at the Vienna International Piano Academy in Austria, Marco Polo Festival in Querceto, Italy, and Mukogawa Women’s University in Hyogo, Japan. He has also traveled extensively throughout Taiwan serving as master class teacher and examiner for the International Piano Performance Examination Committee.

Shuster earned the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in Piano Performance and Related Literature degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance degree from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Shuster was initiated as a National Arts Associate by Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity, an award recognizing his accomplishments as a distinguished educator and performing pianist.