About the Artist

Originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Lillie Gardner began her piano studies with Dr. Joseph Zins of Crocus Hill Studios. There she was a prizewinner in the YPSCA Concerto Competition, the Schubert Club Scholarship Competition, the Thursday Musical Young Artist Scholarship Competition, and she was the First Place Winner of the MTNA National Yamaha Awards – State Division. She performed throughout the Twin Cities in venues such as Benson Great Hall, Sundin Music Hall, Sateren Auditorium, Northrup Auditorium, and Orchestra Hall.

 

Lillie has also performed in the "Chopin 200" Festival at the World Financial Center, the “Tutte le Corde: Piano Music After 1950” concert series in Greenwich Village, the Kosciuszko Foundation House, Saklad Auditorium, Bellevue Hospital, Teatro de Casa Italiana, Southampton Cultural Center, Frederick Loewe Theater, Provincetown Playhouse, the Tenri Cultural Institute of New York, and in Oviedo and Gijón, Spain, as a participant in the Gijón International Piano Festival. In 2011, she received an Honorable Mention for her performance in the New York State Music Teachers Association’s Empire Piano Competition.

 

Lillie received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance at New York University as a student of Miyoko Nakaya Lotto and Dr. Jose Ramon Mendez. Currently, she is pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Connecticut where she has studied with Irma Vallecillo and currently studies with Dr. Angelina Gadeliya.

 

In addition to her music studies, Lillie is an avid writer. She minored in Creative Writing at NYU, was selected to participate in UConn's 2014 AETNA Writer-in-Residence fiction tutorials, and she teaches creative writing at the Mansfield Community Center in Connecticut. Most recently, her piece "Schofield Road" won Third Place in The Writers' Workshop of Asheville's 2016 Memoirs Contest. Lillie has been published in The Slag Review and the Long River Review, and is currently revising her first novel under the mentorship of author Mohammed Naseehu Ali.