Conference Information

November 5-7, 2026

Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA

Make plans now to attend the 2026 GMTA State Conference held on the beautiful campus of Valdosta State University!

Conference Recitalist and Masterclass Clinician: Antoinette Perry

Antoinette Perry, born into a family of professional musicians, gave her first public performance at the age of four. Since then she has concertized extensively throughout the United States, Germany, France, England, and in over 20 cities of the People's Republic of China. She has been heard on NPR, the CBC, the BBC and the Bravo! Channel, and has recorded for the Crystal, Harmonie, Pacific Rainbow, Pacific Serenades, Excelsior, and Navona/PARMA labels. Her two solo albums, "Beethoven Bookends," and "Moments Musicaux" are available on all major online platforms under the Navona LIVE/PARMA label (released 2021 and 2022).

Le Dauphine Libéré has lauded her "irreproachable technique" and "a musical comprehension which could only belong to one of the Greats." Germaine Vadi of Les Affiches de Grenoble et du Dauphine wrote: "One felt oneself to be in the presence of a great pianist---an absolute art of nuance, her subtle touch, and finally her perfect musical understanding, which permits her to assimilate the music of all cultures." The LA Times has praised her "exceptional artistry" (Bruce Burroughs), her "superb Schubert in every respect" (Albert Goldberg), and, in a performance with the LA Mozart Orchestra: "The centerpiece was Mozart's Piano Concerto in G, K. 543, in a wonder of pertinent, pointed musicality…expressive…richly detailed..."(John Hanken).

Artist-faculty Emeritus at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Ms. Perry performed in over 100 concerts during her 25-year tenure. Other festivals include Bravo!International, Lansum International, Zhengzhou International, Saarburg International, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Chamber Music Sedona, Ojai Festival, Taipei International, 20th Century Unlimited in Santa Fe, and the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, among others.

As a young artist she was one of only two women representing the United States (seven women world-wide) in the 6th Van Cliburn International Competition (1981) and subsequently received a fellowship to the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood. A highlight of her later career was the opportunity to perform the Mozart Double and Triple Concerti with Leon Fleisher, Katherine Jacobson, and the Aspen Chamber Symphony, to commemorate the Aspen Music Festival's 150th anniversary and Leon Fleisher's 75th birthday.

As a chamber musician, Ms. Perry has collaborated with many of the world's greatest artists, including John Perry, Leon Fleisher, Brooks Smith, Ralph Kirshbaum, Ronald Leonard, David Shifrin, Eugene Fodor, Henri Temianka, Joachin Valdepenas, Carol Wincenc, and actors Michael York and Walter Matthau. She has performed with members of the American, Chicago, Cleveland, Emerson, Juilliard, Angeles, Paganini, Sequoia and Takacs String Quartets, with concertmasters of the Chicago Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Hague Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Baltimore Philharmonic, and the Orpheus, Los Angeles and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, as well as principals of the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, the Gulbenkian and Zurich Tonnehalle Orchestras, the Toronto and San Francisco Symphonies, and the LA, Stuttgart and Saarbrücken Operas. Other collaborators were faculty members at Juilliard, Eastman School, Manhattan School, Peabody Institute, Beijing Central Conservatory, Seoul National University, Glenn Gould Conservatory in Toronto, R.D. Colburn School, the Shepherd School at Rice, and the Universität der Künste in Berlin. In LA she collaborates regularly with members of the USC and UCLA faculties and well as with prominent film industry musicians. In the fall of 2024 she toured China with her duo partner Professor Manchun Chen of the Beijing Central Conservatory.

She also enjoys bringing new music to audiences, having premiered works by Michael Patterson, Roger Bourland, Mark Carlson, Steven Christopher Sacco, John Steinmetz, Bevan Manson, Donald Keats, Roland E. Curb and Chikako Iverson.

Ms. Perry served on the UCLA piano faculty for 12 years before joining the faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music in 1996, where she currently teaches. She has given over 200 master classes, most notably at the Eastman School of Music and as artist-in-residence for a week at the Beijing Central Conservatory. Former students are enjoying successful careers as performers and pedagogues throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. The California Association of Professional Music Teachers awarded her their 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Her wonderful teachers have included John Perry, Carlo Zecchi, Gilbert Kalish, Richard Goode, Danielle Martin and Richard Angeletti. As a child she was surrounded with the beautiful, rich sounds of her pianist mother, Lillian Haslach Teddlie, her bass-baritone father, Paul Krueger, and later her step-father, baritone Antonio Perez.

She is the proud mother of Sean, Maureen and Michael Perry. She shares with them the Lifetime Achievement Award presented her in 2021 by the California Association of Professional Music Teachers.

Conference Pedagogy Headliner: Sara Ernst

Sara M. Ernst, PhD, NCTM, is an active piano pedagogue, researcher, and pianist, and serves as Associate Professor of Piano and Director of Piano Pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma. She is currently the Director of Teacher Engagement for the Frances Clark Center, where she has directed the program of The Piano Conference: NCKP since 2020. Other leadership roles have included serving as South Carolina Music Teachers Association President and Vice President of Conferences and, currently, as the Collegiate Chapter Chair for the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association.

Dr. Ernst’s presentations and lecture recitals have been featured at the conferences of the International Society of Music Education, Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference, Research in Music Education, Music Teachers National Association, GP3, NCKP, and College Music Society. Her articles have appeared in Piano Magazine, Clavier Companion, and American Music Teacher. She designed and contributed to the first two online courses for the Frances Clark Center and authored modules on teaching elementary students for the Royal Conservatory of Music's online teacher training courses. She is currently co-editor-in-chief of the magazine Piano Inspires Kids, senior editor of Piano Magazine, and recently edited the 2023 and 2025 volumes of the Proceedings of NCKP. She is a frequent adjudicator for piano events and competitions and has served as an examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music in the U.S. and Canada, where she also assisted in the music selection of multiple volumes of the Celebration Series and reviewed the 2015 Piano Syllabus.

Prior to Oklahoma, Dr. Ernst worked at the University of South Carolina for ten years, serving as Associate Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy, Coordinator of Group Piano, and Keyboard Area Chair. Additionally, she founded the Center for Piano Studies, which grew into a vibrant community of piano students from the area. Additional previous positions include those at the New School for Music Study in New Jersey as the Administrative Director and faculty member, Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan, and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Dr. Ernst earned a PhD in music education with an emphasis in piano pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, completing her dissertation on the teaching philosophy of Mr. Marvin Blickenstaff, an internationally acclaimed piano teacher. Her other degrees are from the University of Missouri-Columbia and Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

GMTA Commissioned Composer: Jack Ballard

Jack Ballard has composed, performed and produced music in a variety of genres, from classical and Film music to jazz and bluegrass. He worked with Gunther Schuller, Wendell Jones, Arthur Post, David Maddux, and Frank Wiley, and received B.A.Ed and M.M. degrees from Central Washington and Eastern Washington Universities. His half-dissertation on hyperextended tertian sonority is from Kent State University. Its initial research received the Bruce Benward Student Music Theory Award in 2007. His ballet, The Castle for orchestra, received the Ipark Foundation's Thanatopolis Prize for Memorial Composition for the movement, "Lament," and his piece, Dances for solo violin has won several awards for composition. As a Fulbright Scholar in African Music (Kenya, 2013), it is no surprise that his pieces often incorporate classical and ethnic styles throughout the world, but especially New World and Old World styles that contributed to the development of music in North and South America.

He especially enjoys composing popular and classical style integration in formats such as film scoring and eclectic CD projects, resulting pieces known for being genre-, ethnically- and period- specific and diverse. Probably the best known representation of his diversity in styles and instrumentation is his song cycle The Psalms (REX Music, 1994), which includes such jazz notables as Alex Acuña, David Friesen, Fletch Wiley, Tom Patitucci, and others, and members of the Oregon Symphony. "So unique and creative, it breaks new artistic ground" from National Religious Broadcaster. "A great collection:" Moody Monthly. Of his symphonic poem for orchestra, The Traveler's Psalm, the Durango Herald wrote: "Enchanting, lyrical and polished to the point that it sounded as if it were the work of one of our time-honored masters."

He currently researches and writes music and novels in Malawi.