Welcome to Season 2 of the Piano Explored Podcast! Thank you for your support.
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I met Dr. Whitehead at the University of Maryland, College Park in the studio of Bradford Gowen. We were both DMA students at the time. Annalee's husband is in the State Department and they have lived all over the world. While raising a family, she has found time to explore teaching and piano playing in Costa Rica and Kenya - to name a few places that she has lived!

As a notable soloist and chamber artist, pianist Annalee Whitehead has thrilled audiences everywhere with her ability to convey modern repertoire with riveting emotion, leaving audiences inspired to further explore contemporary music. She produced two albums of solo piano music composed during her lifetime to promote contemporary composers around the world. She was invited to perform these works abroad as an international guest artist at The Escuela Superior de Musica y Dansa in Monterrey, Mexico and the Safaricom House Classical Concert Series in Nairobi, Kenya. As a recurring solo artist on the concert series at the Washington DC Temple Visitors Center, she was invited back to perform some of these contemporary works as well. Ms. Whitehead’s lifelong collaborative experiences range in breadth from working with vocalist and choirs, to chamber groups, theater productions and dance studios. Notably, she was a guest artist with the string ensemble Zeze, accompanist for Stephen Schwartz’ masterclasses, accompanist and organist for the Nairobi Music Society and theatrical accompanist for the show Musical Love Lives which toured throughout Kenya and Tanzania. 

Dr. Whitehead received her BM degree in piano performance and pedagogy from Brigham Young University, and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Maryland. She studied with Doug Humphreys, Irene Peery, Alice Rybak, Bradford Gowen and Andre Watts. With twenty-five years of teaching experience, Ms.Whitehead is a highly sought out piano teacher and adjudicator in the communities where she has lived. Many of her students are winners of local competitions and festivals and are accepted into university music programs. While living in Costa Rica, she discovered a new musical passion directing a 250 person children’s choir while teaching general music at Country Day School.
 
She is currently working towards licensure to teach choir in a K-12 classroom setting. Dr. Whitehead lives in Ashburn, VA with her husband and four children where she runs a private piano studio and is a member of the VMTA, NVMTA and Fairfax/Loudoun Fellowship. She serves her community as an adjudicator, accompanist and collaborative artist and anticipates the release of her contemporary recordings on various streaming platforms.