Fenella Theodore

Bio

Fenella Theodore is a pianist and the lead instructor of the Piano Laboratory Program at the University of Illinois, where she also serves as the program coordinator. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Literature studies at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, where she was an awardee of the Fellowship. Her main teachers include Dr. William Heiles and Dr. Timothy Ehlen. In addition, she regularly takes master classes with Dr. Ian Hobson, studies harpsichord with Dr. Charlotte Mattax Moersch and Piano Pedagogy with Dr. Christos Tsitsaros.

In 2020, she received the Artist Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Antonio Pompa-Baldi. She previously studied with Monique Duphil at the Oberlin Conservatory where she received her Bachelor of Music on the Dean Meritorious Award. She continued with her graduate studies with Arnaldo Cohen at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. During her graduate studies at Indiana University, she held the Associate Instructorship of Piano under the supervision of Dr. David Cartledge, where she taught secondary applied piano lessons, group classes and collaborated with singers and instrumentalists.

As a native of Indonesia, she started learning piano with her mother at nine years old. A year later, she entered a local music school and became the youngest to complete her studies at fourteen years old. She was awarded grande distinction from the Institut Royal Supérieur de Musique et de Pédagogie de Namur in Belgium.

Fenella was a recipient of the Presser Award at Oberlin (2012), Langford Fellowship at University of Illinois (2021), and prizes from South Shore Conservatory’s Duxbury Music Festival Competition and Edward Auer Workshop Competition. As a soloist, she has performed across the United States, in Italy, Germany, France, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, at the EuroArts Festival, Académie Internationale d’Eté de Nice, Summer Academy in Uelzen, DMF’s Prizewinners Concert, Edward Auer Workshop’s Winners Concert, and the Todi Music Masters where she also performed a concerto under the direction of Maestro D’Ovidio with the TIMM Ensemble which comprises of members from major orchestras in Italy such as Teatro “Alla Scala” Milan and Teatro “La Fenice”.

As a collaborator, she has played with the University of Illinois’ Wind Symphony and Symphony Orchestra, and in various chamber music and duo concerts in the Midwest. Her most recent engagement was as guest pianist and lecturer at a summer music program in Medan, where she performed a solo recital and taught master classes to young Indonesian talents.