Dr. Shannon Hesse is a staff pianist at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the University of Houston Moores School of Music, she plays with Cantare Houston and the Young Texas Artists Music Competition, and is a member of the collaborative piano faculty at the Chautauqua Institution Summer Music Festival. Previously, Dr. Hesse served on the faculties of Houston Baptist University, Texas Southern University and Valdosta State University. She spent many wonderful summers teaching at Westminster Choir College’s High School Piano Camp and at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, where she served as Coordinator of Collaborative Piano. Recent recordings include The Artist at Fifty with grammy-award winning soprano Melissa Givens, found on the Centaur record label, and Musical Stories with chamber music written by Robert Nelson.

A devoted teacher, Dr. Hesse is a long-standing member of Music Teachers National Association, where she is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music. She is frequently in demand as an adjudicator and her students have been prizewinners in competitions at the local and state levels. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music in Collaborative Piano and Chamber Music from Catholic University, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College.