Michael Stepniak is a broadly trained artist and educator. As Dean of Shenandoah Conservatory, Stepniak oversees a dynamic community: a higher education unit of over 120 faculty and close to 700 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in 28 degree programs; the Shenandoah Conservatory Arts Academy serving approximately 1,200 students; a performance season and venues serving over 28,000 patrons each year; and 56 operational budgets. Since beginning his work as dean in 2009, Stepniak has been privileged to hire mischief makers and to work with conservatory faculty and students and broader university leadership in radically increasing the conservatory’s profile, strengthening its quality as an inclusive community, and further providing young artists with an exceptionally nurturing community.
Stepniak completed interdisciplinary doctoral studies in aesthetics, education and leadership at Harvard University (where he won the Spencer Fellowship and Entering Award), and graduate studies in viola at Peabody Conservatory (where he won the Sidney Friedberg Prize), in musicology at Northwestern University (where he was appointed to the alpha chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda) and in violin at New England Conservatory (where he was leader of the Honors Quartet). After leaving his native Australia at 15 for studies in Canada, he completed his undergraduate studies in the United States with high distinction in Music and English at Atlantic Union College.
Stepniak maintains an active role in arts education at the national and international level. He was recently voted in as President-Elect of the College Music Society. He has served on the board of directors of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans, and has chaired the global connections task force in that same body. Beyond the arts, Stepniak has worked with college and university presidents and senior leadership from Rice University to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on issues ranging from leadership development and arts initiatives, to curriculum reviews and strategic planning.
As an author and speaker, Stepniak has become a national voice advocating for innovative change in education, including in the area of classical music performance training within higher education. His recent books by Routledge Press and College Music Society advance powerful arguments for innovative transformation, outlining pathways to better ensure the future vitality of arts training centers.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Stepniak has performed in major concert halls and venues in 11 countries, been featured on National Public Radio, recorded for the Centaur Records label, performed frequently with the Mendelssohn Piano Trio, as a member of the National Philharmonic String Quartet, the Contemporary Music Forum, and the Razumovsky String Quartet, and has collaborated with various leading chamber musicians, ranging from Ann Schein, Earl Carlyss, and Lory Wallfisch, to Arlo Guthrie. Papers such as The Washington Post have referred to his playing as tremendously poised and transcendent.
As an artist, Stepniak is connected to a rich musical heritage through studies with foremost chamber musicians and soloists. As leader of New England Conservatory’s Honors Quartet, Stepniak worked extensively with Eugene Lehner, longtime member of the legendary Kolisch Quartet (which premiered chamber works for Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and Bartók), and former student at Budapest’s Royal Conservatory of Music of Zoltán Kodály and Jenő Hubay.
As principal violist with the Peabody Conservatory symphony orchestra and violist with the Razumovsky Quartet, Stepniak studied chamber music with Earl Carlyss, a 20-year member of the Juilliard Quartet and former student of Ivan Galamian and the Paris Conservatoire’s Roland Charmy and Jacques Février. He also received coachings at Peabody from Berl Senofsky, a former student of Louis Persinger and Ivan Galamian.
Stepniak’s other primary teachers include violinist/composer/pianist Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse (former student of Louis Persinger, Nadia Boulanger, and Leon Fleisher) and violinist James Buswell (former student of Ivan Galamian). His viola training at Peabody Conservatory included work as the teaching assistant to Victoria Chiang (a former student of Heidi Castleman and Dorothy DeLay). Stepniak’s musicianship is further informed by training with leading music theorists, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists including Robert Levin, Theodore Karp and Paul Berliner.
Prior to joining Shenandoah, Stepniak served at Adelphi University as Associate Dean of Performing Arts. Reporting to the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, he was responsible for overseeing the further development of the music, dance and theatre departments, and was the director of Adelphi’s new Performing Arts Center, overseeing the successful launch and operationalization of a $30 million state-of-the-art facility.
He is married to Anne Schempp and is the proud father of Marianna, Caroline, Tristan, and Tilda.