Now retired as professor of piano (after 42 years) I’m deeply grateful for decades of exploring music’s riches – its transcendent, flowing meaning; performers’ processes that integrate body, mind and spirit; the life-affirming contact with others that we feel when beautiful music is shared.
As concert pianist, teaching mentor, public speaker, workshop leader and author, I continue to seek practical and healthy solutions to the challenges musicians face. At the same time, I am always inspired by the larger picture, realizing more and more how meaningfully musical experiences crystallize who we are as humans and what we can be.
Thanks for visiting this site – and I’d be delighted to hear from you! – William Westney
Recent News:
What Piano Study Can Offer in a World of AI
This brief talk was delivered in a plenary session at the 2025 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. What are the human implications for our work in an age of AI?
Piano Inspire: William Westney, The Joy of Making Music and “The Un-Master Class” | S3 E20
The podcast above, part of the “Piano Inspires” series, consists of a thoughtful and wide-ranging interview conducted by Pamela Pike of the Frances Clark Center. Click here to listen.
Excerpt of Eros at the Piano featured in Feb/March issue of American Music Teacher
Here is the cover article for the February/March 2025 issue of American Music Teacher. A great opportunity to present some of the main themes of the Eros book in just three pages!
Previous News
2023: Publication by Rowman & Littlefield of new book: Eros at the Piano: The Life-Energy of Classical Music. Info here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538167502/Eros-at-the-Piano-The-Life-Energy-of-Classical-Music . . . The REVIEWS tab lists pre-publication endorsements, which describe the book as “original, bold, captivating, compelling, revelatory, enlightening, luminous, inspirational, brilliantly researched, astonishingly readable.”
2022: Performance with Jackson (MI) Symphony Orchestra of “Warsaw Concerto” by Richard Addinsell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-V4zb_QLyE
2021: Named Distinguished Professor Emeritus by the Board of Regents of Texas Tech University
2020: Joined the presenter faculty on the UK-based instructional site “Practising the Piano” (Online Academy). Have released many videos there on various topics. Here is a link to the first release:
July 2017: Article published in Brain and Cognition 115:47-55: “Mirror neuron activation of musicians and non-musicians in response to motion captured piano performances”
The article “The Pedagogical Value of ‘Enjoyment’ in the Classical Piano Studio – A Research Report on a Transdisciplinary Study” (Grund, O’Boyle, Westney, Yang) was named “Article of the Year 2016” by MTNA E-Journal, and a cash award was presented at the Music Teachers National Association conference in March 2017.
Two articles on the transdisciplinary research project carried out by Westney, Grund, O’Boyle and Yang (see Research tab) have been published (1) “Musical Embodiment and Perception: Performances, Avatars and Audiences”: SIGNATA. Annales des Sémiotique / Annals of Semiotics, # 6, 2015. Music and Meaning / Sémiotiques de la musique, Presses Universitaires de Liège (Belgium). (2) “The Pedagogical Value of ‘Enjoyment’ in the Classical Piano Studio – A Research Report on a Transdisciplinary Study”: MTNA E-Journal April 16, 2016 (Music Teachers National Association)
Texas Tech University named William Westney to its “Integrated Scholars” roster in 2014. A profile and 2-minute video can be seen HERE.
Music Teachers National Association designated William Westney the 2012 recipient of the “Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award” in recognition of the ongoing contribution made to the field of pedagogy by his book The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self (2003).