Lynn Worcester Jones

Lynn Worcester Jones, DMA, begins her new role at CCM on Aug. 15, 2024. Prior to her appointment at CCM, Jones served as Associate Professor, Keyboard Area Coordinator at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) where she taught piano, piano pedagogy, piano literature and collaborative piano. While at UTC, Jones established the Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Pedagogy degree, the only degree of its kind in the region. She also led major curriculum overhauls to the class piano-music theory-aural skills sequence, piano pedagogy sequence, piano ensemble and collaborative piano coursework.

In her prior position, Jones was the recipient of the 2023-24 UTC College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Research & Creative Achievement Award. She applies her own research to cultivate motivation in piano students, develop effective ways to diversify the standard piano teaching literature and to recruit and retain the next generation of collegiate artist-educators. Her article “Priming Gen Z to Save the Arts” appears on the cover of the April/May 2024 issue of American Music Teacher. Since 2017, she has published eight articles in peer-reviewed publications including American Music Teacher, Clavier Companion, Piano Magazine and Piano Pedagogy Forum. Her recent articles have promoted diversifying the standard piano teaching literature (“Repertoire Swaps,” Piano Magazine, Autumn 2020), highlighted Asian-Canadian female composer Alexina Louie (“Teaching Contemporary Techniques,” Piano Magazine, Winter 2021), and contributed to the Inspiring Artistry series through the Frances Clark Center. In demand as a presenter, Jones has 18 national and international refereed presentations since 2018 and over 45 presentations total. She is presenting new research titled Empowering Gen Z Musicians: The Role of Autonomy in Fostering Intrinsic Motivation at the 2024 MTNA Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Conference hosted at CCM this August. Since 2021, Jones has served on the Editorial Committee of American Music Teacher.

Beginning her piano studies at the age of four with her mother, Eiki Paik Worcester, Jones has performed solo and chamber recitals throughout the United States, Italy and Austria. Her performances include works from the standard repertoire, and she has also championed works by living women composers in her research and on stage. Recent concert programs, for example, have included works by female composers—Mazzoli, Boulanger, Poldowski, Clarke, Urner, Beglarian, Ruehr, Hensel and others—as well as works by Mozart, Liszt, Villa-Lobos, Schubert, Ginastera, Glass, Cage and a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Jones earned the DMA from the University of Oklahoma, MM from Baylor University, and MM and BM from California State University, Fullerton. Her principal teachers have been Robert Watson, Eduardo Delgado, Krassimira Jordan and Jane Magrath. She has studied piano pedagogy with Martha Baker-Jordan, Lesley McAllister, Barbara Fast and Jane Magrath.

Jones’ students have recently won numerous competitions and awards including the 2024 Knoxville International Piano Competition and the Tennessee Music Teachers Association’s Collegiate-category competitions, along with departmental academic and music awards, and university concerto competitions. Her students have also earned scholarships and assistantships to top MM and PhD programs, won a tenure-track academic position at an R1 university, have been accepted into leading summer piano festivals (including Amalfi Coast Festival and Tennessee Governor School for the Arts), and opened new piano studios throughout the country.