Dr. Arthur Houle

​Founder and Artistic Director, Festival for Creative Pianists
Emeritus Professor of Music, Colorado Mesa University

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Arthur Houle is founder and artistic director of the Festival for Creative Pianists, a unique venue open to all young pianists up to age 19. As of 2021, the festival also has a "Lifelong Learner" category open to adults age 20 and older. The festival promotes classical and jazz improvisation, versatility, composition, individuality, and repertory excellence in all styles.

Dr. Houle also has professor emeritus status from Colorado Mesa University, where he taught applied piano, piano pedagogy, keyboard literature, piano ensemble, composition, class piano and accompanying techniques. During his 14-year tenure (2006-2020), he earned a total of five Exemplary Faculty Awards (a sixth nomination in spring 2020 was suspended due to Covid-19).

An exponent of both classical and jazz improvising, Houle is in frequent demand as a clinician, adjudicator and performer. He holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, New England Conservatory, and the University of Iowa. He was the only pianist to be invited to perform twice, to critical acclaim, in the 1995 International Chopin Music Festival. He has given coast-to-coast lecture/recitals and master classes at institutions such as Eastman School of Music, Dartmouth College, New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, and for various teacher organizations. Houle also presents often for national and regional professional conferences. His Carnegie Recital Hall debut with cellist Dennis Parker was critically acclaimed. Frequent radio airings include two live interview/performances on NPR’s "Eklektikos" program for KUT-Austin, Texas.

Houle was presented with a Steinway & Sons Top Teacher Award at the 2019 Festival for Creative Pianists (press release). Houle also received a 2011 Music Teachers National Association Fellow Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the music teaching profession. He has written for Piano & Keyboard, Clavier, Clavier Companion (now Piano Magazine), Piano Today, American Record Guide, Music Educator journals, American Music Teacher ("5 Minutes With..."). and the newsletters of FJH ("It's Easy to Improvise"), College Music Society, and the Colorado State Music Teachers Association. In 2008, the Hal Leonard Corporation published his Cowboy Jazz, a collection of original compositions for intermediate students. Houle's subsequent publisher, Abundant Silence, published Cowboy Jazz II in 2015.

Houle also edited a groundbreaking new definitive edition of Clementi's Sonatinas, Op. 36 and issued recordings of the six sonatinas.
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       -      Nos. 1 & 2
       -      Nos. 3 & 4
       -      Nos. 5 & 6
PictureArthur Houle (left) is presented with a Steinway & Sons Top Teacher Award by Barry Damerell (Schmitt Music) at the 2019 Festival for Creative Pianists

Houle’s crticially acclaimed “Chopin Nocturnes” CD (see p. 3) features performances with authentic variants along with original variants as Chopin might have done. Other CDs feature lesser-known cello/piano repertory and the music of contemporary composers James Fry and Marjorie Burgess.

Houle’s principal academic piano teacher was Leonard Shure, who traced his musical lineage directly to Beethoven (Shure/Schnabel/Leschetizsky/Czerny/Beethoven). Houle’s chamber music coaches included Eugene Lehner, Colin Carr, Benjamin Zander and Victor Rosenbaum, longtime director of the Longy School of Music in Boston.
A private teacher since the age of thirteen, Houle taught previously at New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, the College of Idaho, and the Universities of Iowa, North Dakota and Texas-Austin.

Contact: houlearthur@gmail.com

  • Chopin Waltz in A Minor, Op. posth. (published 1955; free sheet music download), with variants and lead-in cadenza by the performer:
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