Wilson Hall 4025
(540) 458-8272
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Shuko Watanabe received her early musical training in Japan, attending the Kunitachi School of Music under Noriko Kanayama as well as studying privately with renowned Japanese pianist, Shuku Iwasaki. Matriculating to the United States for further study, Watanabe entered the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University as a scholarship student of Lillian Freundlich, completing her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance. She later earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland at College Park, where she studied with professors Stewart Gordon, Roy Hamlin Johnson, and Ray Luck.

Her dissertation, Tradition and Synthesis: Influences on the Solo Piano Works of 34 Japanese Composers Surveyed (704 pp), dealt extensively with the ethnomusicological aspects of traditional Japanese music as well as with contemporary Western-style compositions by Japanese composers. Her article, Japanese Music: An East-West Synthesis, has been published in American Music Teacher, the official magazine of the Music Teachers National Association. In demand as a lecturer on musical topics, especially those related to Japanese contemporary music, Dr. Watanabe has been invited on two occasions to deliver lectures at the symposium, Music of Japan Today: Tradition and Innovation I (1992) & II (1994), held at Hamilton College in New York. These two lectures are now published by Hamilton College. Watanabe was a presenter on Japanese composers at the 29th National Conference of the Society of Composers Inc. at the University of Memphis, Tennessee. She was also selected to deliver a paper for the 1993 & 1996 annual meetings of the College Music Society, Mid-Atlantic Chapter.

Dr. Watanabe is frequently engaged as a soloist, chamber-music performer, and as a lecturer. She has appeared in Japan and throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Mid-West, and Southern United States. Her performances have been regularly broadcast on Public Radio, WVTF FM 89.1. As a founding member of Ardo Duo (with her husband, Byron W. Petty) and Ardo Consort, she appears in Traveler’s Tales—Recent Compositions of Byron W. Petty, on the Capstone Records label [CPS-8776], currently available as MP3 downloads through Amazon and Petty’s second CD, Tendrils, on Navona Records/Parma Recordings [NV 5833] which was released in the fall of 2010, also available through Amazon as well as iTunes.

She has been featured soloist with the University-Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra and Eurydice Community Orchestra of Roanoke in performances of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 & No. 3, as well as in Mozart’s Double Piano Concerto with pianist Dr. Timothy Gaylard and Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the University-Shenandoah Symphony Orchestra. In the fall of 2012, she is engaged to perform Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Major with the Elon University Orchestra, NC. Her other professional credits include lectures and performances at Bellarmine College (KY), Brenau University (GA), Elon College (CMS; NC), George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), Great Falls Concert Series (VA), Guilford College (CMS; NC), Hamilton College (NY), Hollins University (VA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Wesleyan University, Marshall University (WV), University of Memphis (SCI; TN), Northern Virginia Community College, University of Pennsylvania (SCI), State University College at Potsdam (NY), Southern Virginia University (VA); Radford University (VA), Roanoke College (VA), Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Washington and Lee University (VA), West Virginia University (CMS), Central Virginia & Roanoke Valley Music Teachers Association, Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts/Art Museum of Western Virginia, Music at St. Patrick's (Washington, D.C.), Eldbrooke Artist Series (Washington, D.C.), and the "Con Spirito" Concert Series (VA).

Currently, Dr. Watanabe is on the faculty at Washington & Lee University as Instructor of Music, teaching courses in Applied Piano, Aural Skills (Ear-Training & Sight-Singing), and Supervised Accompanying. During the summer of 2011, she was on the coaching staff of the Princeton Chamber Play Week Virginia. Previously, she served at the Peabody Conservatory as personal assistant to Lillian Freundlich, taught at several area colleges in Virginia, including Hollins University, Roanoke College, and Southern Virginia University, and was a guest instructor at the Firespark Summer Camp hosted by Brenau University, Georgia. Other past professional positions include two terms as Secretary/Treasurer for the College Music Society Mid-Atlantic Chapter; Music Director of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke, Virginia; founder of the "Con Spirito" Concert Series of Roanoke, Virginia; and as Board of Directors/Artistic Director of the Eurydice Community Orchestra of Roanoke, Virginia.