Teacher of the Year

Dr. Margaret Evans is a member of the piano faculty at Meredith College, North Carolina. She holds degrees in piano performance from Northwestern University (D.M.), the University of Illinois (M.M.), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.M., Phi Beta Kappa). She performs as recitalist, concerto soloist, and collaborative artist with vocalists and instrumentalists.

Dr. Evans is known for building students who play with depth of understanding, passion, beauty, and technical ease. She has produced many winners of significant regional piano competitions, as well as several prize winners at the national and international level. Her students have performed concertos with orchestra (at least sixteen to date), including those by Beethoven, Chopin, Gershwin, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Schumann. They have been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships to conservatories such as Eastman, New England Conservatory, Oberlin, and Peabody. Dr. Evans has received several awards for her teaching, including Florida State University’s first “Excellence in Teaching” Award in 2013, where she was one of only three artist-teachers nationwide chosen to receive the recognition. Increasingly sought-after as a master class clinician, Dr. Evans is frequently engaged as a speaker as well. Recent master classes have been conducted at the University of North Carolina School of the
Arts, East Carolina University (consecutive years), and the State University of New York, Fredonia. Speaking engagements include the NCMTA State Conference (Banquet Speaker); the World Piano Pedagogy Conference; and talks for many professional music organizations throughout North Carolina, the Pacific Northwest, and the Midwest.

Dr. Evans has judged American piano competitions from coast to coast, including the Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International, MTNA NC, North Carolina Symphony Concerto Competition, the Virginia State Music Teachers Competition (both the concerto and solo competitions), and the State of Illinois Chicago Piano Competition finals. She has received ten invitations to judge in Hong Kong and in China, with the two most recent trips in 2019.

An active member of NCMTA, Dr. Evans served two terms on the Executive Board (Constitution/Handbook Chair), and currently serves as Coordinator of the Young Artist division of MTNA North Carolina. She established the MTNA Collegiate Chapter at Meredith College in 2005, the second such chapter in the state, and served as its Faculty Advisor for five years. Dr. Evans also served two terms on the Executive Board of Raleigh Chamber Music Guild. She is an active member of Raleigh