Professor Emerita of Music, Western Oregon University. Monmouth, Oregon, 1988-2021
Recipient of Mario & Alma Pastega Faculty Honors Award in Creativity (1994)
Recipient of Mario & Alma Pastega Faculty Honors Award for Teaching (2005)
Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award: Who’s Who Publications Board (2017)
Editor, The Oregon Musician, a publication by Oregon Music Teachers Association, MTNA/OMTA: since 2014. Music Teachers National Association: Nationally Certified Teacher of Music in Piano: since 2011.
Program Grants Presenter, State of Oregon for OMTA: since 2015.
Active Adjudicator and Clinician in the USA and England: Since 1990.
Grants Reviewer, New York University, Abu Dhabi: 2016-2018.
Mentor and Studio Professor for Chinese Scholars from Guanxi Arts Institute, Nanning, China: 2015-2018.

 

Diane Baxter performs as a soloist, a chamber musician, and an orchestral pianist throughout the United States, in Canada, Japan and France. Her training is primarily from a long heritage of Hungarian piano teachers, including Bela Boszormenyi-Nagy and Gyorgy Sebok. Diane has worked more recently with Paul Roberts, Charles Owen, Stefan Bojsten, and Alon Goldstein.

 

Diane has appeared as soloist with the Cascade Festival of Music Orchestra, the Western Oregon Symphony, the Oregon Mozart Players. She has been the Principal Keyboard Artist for the Newport Symphony Orchestra - playing piano, harpsichord and celesta - for over twenty years.

 

She regularly taught courses in Ethnomusicology, Graduate Research Methods, Performance Anxiety, and Studio Piano.

 

A solo piano CD, Alive at Dawn, was released in 2003. Her work is also included on Pinnacles, released in 2015.

Diane’s article on music and the brain, “The Science of Artistry: The Fourth String”, was published in the international journal, Clavier Companion. "Ethnomusicology and Alchemy" was recently published in American Music Teacher, a national publication. She is editor of The Oregon Musician, an e-journal sponsored by the Oregon Music Teachers Association. Diane's review of Robert Philip's "A Little History of Music", for The American Music Teacher was published in August/September 2023.

 

Dr. Baxter frequently gives workshops on performance anxiety for students and teachers, and adjudicates for piano competitions and festivals. She is one of the featured presenters for the OMTA District Grants Program, which involves presentations throughout the state.

 

In March 2015 Diane served as principal adjudicator of 350 pianists and presented the keynote speech, “Stepping Into the Light: Advice for Performers”, at the Woodley Competition in Berkshire, England. She accepted a second invitation to the Woodley Festival in March 2017, again as principal piano adjudicator and keynote speaker presenting “The Body Always Wins: Or How to Prepare for Just About Anything”. She returned again to Woodley in 2022.  She recently served as adjudicator on the piano panel for the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival.  Diane gives diverse presentations, such as this pre-concert lecture,  “The Archaeology of Music Making: Where Did that Idea Come From?”,  for the Oregon Symphony.

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In October 2023 she was invited to the University of Oxford to deliver a lecture for the Music Faculty on "How to Prepare for Just About Anything".

 

QUALIFICATIONS:
Doctor of Musical Arts Degree: University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. Primary Area: Piano Performance, Mentor: Dr. Marlene Thal. Secondary Area: Music History, Mentor: Dr. Robert Hurwitz. Dissertation: Fourteen Unpublished Piano Pieces of Edmund Foster Soule.

Master of Music: Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.