Dr. Matthew Manwarren was presented with the SCMTA Teacher of the Year Award at the 2018 Annual Conference at Bob Jones University.
Originally from El Paso, Texas, pianist Matthew Manwarren has established a notable career as performer and artist teacher over years. Since 2006, he has served as Professor of Piano at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. In 2018, he was appointed Visiting Artist Professor of Piano at the University of South Carolina. He has also served on the piano faculty at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, and at Erskine College, where he held the Harriet Pressly Smith Caldwell Professorship in Music. Since 1998, Manwarren has served on the faculty at the Adamant Music School during the summers, a prestigious program for advanced-level pianists from all over the world.
Past performances include recitals at the Steinway Piano Gallery of Charlotte, Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, the Sundays at the Loft series in New York (Behre Piano Associates), the Ivories on the Border series in El Paso, Belmont Camerata series in Nashville, three recitals on the Cathedral Arts Series in Burlington, VT, and numerous concerts throughout the US.
Manwarren began his piano studies in El Paso with Mary Lou Hindman Wade and later continued his study with Claude Herdon (a pupil of Tobias Matthay). He earned his undergraduate degree (summa cum laude) from Texas Tech University as a student of William Westney. While there he received the prestigious Eva Browning Piano Scholarship and was winner of the university concerto competition, performing Chopin’s Concerto in E Minor with the Texas Tech University Symphony. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, studying piano with Frank Weinstock and Elisabeth Pridonoff and organ with David Mulbury. In 1996, Dr. Manwarren was awarded a Teacher Enrichment Grant from the Music Teachers National Association for the purpose of studying at the French Piano Institute in Paris, where he had the opportunity to coach with Dominique Merlet, Pascal Devoyon, and Noel Lee.
Dr. Manwarren has served two terms as president of the South Carolina Music Teachers Association. He is nationally certified as a teacher of music through Music Teachers National Association.
