Jeff Stanek is an award-winning piano teacher and collaborative pianist based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Jeff has a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Bachelor of Music degree with High Distinction in Music Composition, with a concentration in piano performance, from Indiana University-Bloomington. He currently studies piano technique (Taubman Approach) with Teresa Dybvig, and he’s studied piano previously with Profs. Christopher Taylor, Jess Johnson, Jean-Louis Haguenauer, and Renato Premezzi, as well as with Larry Elliott and Diana Berryman, his first teachers. His composition mentors have included Sven-David Sandström, John Harbison, Don Freund, P.Q. Phan, Richard Wernick, and David Drexler, among others.
Noteworthy recent performances of new and classical repertoire include solo recitals of works by J.S. Bach, Alban Berg, Johannes Brahms, György Ligeti, W.A. Mozart, Sergei Prokofiev, and Karen Tanaka; performances with Present Music, Sound Out Loud, and Token Creek Chamber Music Festival; a master class with Nadia Boulanger protégé Emile Naoumoff; and frequent collaborations with music students at UW-Madison. In addition to performing music by others, Jeff is an established improviser who plays regularly with dancers at the UW-Madison Dance Department and provides service music at Common Grace.
Jeff started teaching piano while in college, at a summer arts camp in New Jersey, and subsequently taught individual students for several years before starting Stanek Piano Studio in 2019. While in school, he also taught music theory and aural skills (solfège) as a TA at both Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin, and at UW, he facilitated coordination of the theory/aural skills and class piano curricula for undergraduate music majors. For several years, Jeff worked as a teaching artist and choir director with Arts for All Wisconsin. Now, along with his private studio teaching, Jeff also enjoys working with piano students in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) Music Makers program.
Steinway & Sons of Madison recognized Jeff’s teaching in 2016 with a Top Teacher Award. A past winner of multiple concerto competitions on piano, Jeff has also won awards for music composition from leading national organizations including ASCAP, BMI, and the National Federation of Music Clubs, and was first prize winner in the 2006 Concurso Internacional de Composição Eletroacústica CEMJKO in Brazil. He’s been a MacDowell Fellow, the ASCAP Foundation Leonard Bernstein Composer Fellow at Tanglewood, and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow.
Jeff is an active member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), Wisconsin Music Teachers Association (WMTA), and Madison Area Music Educators (MAME), as well as the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). He is currently MAME’s membership coordinator, having previously served multiple years leading committees for programs & masterclasses and composition.
Hear Jeff Play
