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Biography


Deborah Yardley Beers has developed a multifaceted musical career which has brought her awards and taken her across the United States and to Europe to perform, teach, and study. Her experiences as pianist, teacher, and composer have led her to develop a balanced and holistic perspective with regard to music and piano teaching that helps cultivate excellence, and is both individualistic and rooted in tradition.

  • Performing Pianist
  • Award Winner
  • Teacher
  • Composer
Since performing Liszt’s Totentanz as soloist with the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra at age 16, Deborah Yardley Beers has performed as solo and chamber music recitalist across the United States and in several European countries. She has also performed live on radio WGBH and as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony, Denver Symphony, Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra, Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory Orchestra. A recent review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer called a performance by Beers “heartfelt” and “strong on color and dynamic variation.”

As a pianist Beers has a strong foundation in the core piano repertoire. She has included on her public recitals works such as the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, and the first 12 Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, Book 1. In addition, though, she has also found inspiration in performing works of lesser-known composers, particularly women composers and contemporary composers. In 1990 she commissioned and gave the world premiere of Novellette, op. 37, by Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee.

Beers has a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance from the University of Colorado. She also holds degrees in piano from the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory and Florida State University. In addition she has studied piano at the Music Academy in Hannover, Germany; the International Summer Music Academy (Mozarteum) in Salzburg, Austria; the Curso Internacional de Música, Estoril, Portugal; and the International Bach Master Classes, Gunsbach, France. Her piano teachers have included Edward Kilenyi, Karl Engel, and Leonard Shure.
In 1978 Beers won a grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (through the Fulbright Commission) to study piano for a year in Germany. Beers was also a semifinalist as a pianist in the Ima Hogg National Young Artists Auditions in Houston, Texas; winner of the William S. Cooper Young Performers Award (from the Boulder Philharmonic Society); and winner of a Spencer Penrose Scholarship Award from the Central City (Colorado) Opera House Association.
An experienced teacher and pianist, Beers now teaches piano in person (when COVID considerations permit) and online. Her in-person lessons take place in three different locations: a private studio in Lexington, Massachusetts, the Cambridge Music Consortium (between Inman Square and Central Square), and at Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, Massachusetts, where she is a member of the piano faculty. Previously, she was a member of the piano faculty at the Longy School of Music (now of Bard College), in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for 25 years. She served as Associate Chair of the Piano Department at Longy for nine years.

In the past she has also taught piano at Dean Junior College as well as through the SMARTS Collaborative of the Great Woods Educational Forum. She has given lectures to many different groups of piano students and teachers and has served as adjudicator for numerous auditions and competitions. Articles of hers about teaching have been published in Clavier and The American Music Teacher.

Beers is a member of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA); Massachusetts Music Teachers Association (MMTA); New England Piano Teachers’ Association (NEPTA); and the Concord Area Music Schools Association (CAMSA).

Compositions by Deborah Yardley Beers have been performed at the Women Composers Festival of Hartford, at the Music By Women Festival in Mississippi, on a Faculty Artist Recital at Central Michigan University School of Music, at a concert at the Berklee College of Music, on the Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young at the Rivers School Conservatory and on Modern American Music recitals at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. Pianists who have performed her music include Miguel Campinho, Jonathan Levin and Prof. Adrienne Wiley of Central Michigan University, and students of Angel Ramón Rivera.

Pieces of hers have been published by Hal Leonard, Evolodias Music, and MusicaNeo (formerly known as "Load.CD"). One of her compositions was reprinted in Keys magazine. Her output as a composer encompasses music both for students and for artist-level performers. Her name is now listed as a “Coming Composer” on the website of A Seat at the Piano.

Beers studied composition with Harold Schiffman at Florida State University, from which she holds a Bachelor of Music in music theory. (She has additional academic credentials as a pianist: See the Performing Pianist section of this page). Improvisation classes with Eloise Ristad and from different Dalcroze Eurhythmics instructors have also played a role in the development of Beers' compositional process.

 

 

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