Stewart Lynell Gordon

Stewart Lynell Gordon is a musician, teacher, writer, editor, composer, and impresario. He holds the position of Professor of Keyboard Studies at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California in Los Angles. As a performing pianist, he has played concerts throughout the world and recorded extensively, both to critical acclaim. As a teacher and author he has produced textbooks, essays, videotapes, and editions. As a composer, his musical theater works have been produced from coast to coast, and as an impresario, he has directed music festival and competitions over the past decades in New York, Washington, and Savannah.

Born to the distinguished poet and novelist Guanetta Gordon and a career military officer Lynell Frank Gordon, Stewart Gordon grew up in many parts of the world, locations where his father served in the United States Army.

After serving as a junior officer in the United States Navy for three years, Stewart began his academic career at Wilmington College in Ohio. He then taught for more than two decades at the University of Maryland in College Park, where for six years he was chair of the Department of Music. It was at the University of Maryland that he created the international piano competition now known as the William Kapell and acted as its director for thirteen years.

He then served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Queens College of the City University of New York. For Queens College he created and directed the New York area-wide Cultural Heritage Competitions, as well as the Great Gospel Competitions.

Since 1988 he has served at his present academic post at the University of Southern California. At the same time he began to work with the Savannah, Georgia, community to create an annual music festival and competition. The Savannah Onstage Music Festival and the American Traditions Competition resulted, and he continued to act as artistic director for both events until 2002.

Stewart Gordon holds degrees from the Staatliches Konservatorium des Saarbrücken (Artist Diploma), University of Kansas (BA, MM) and the Eastman School of Music (DMA). His teachers were Olga Samaroff, Walter Gieseking, Cécile Genhart, and Adele Marcus. As a performing pianist, he toured in the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Hawaii, Japan, Taiwan, the Caribbean, and Saudi Arabia. His recordings include works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, De Falla, Scriabin, Ellis Kohs, Luis de Frietas-Branco, and the complete Rachmaninoff Preludes. He is a Steinway Artist.

Stewart Gordon is the author of Etudes for Piano Teachers (Oxford University Press, New York, 1995); A History of Keyboard Literature (Schirmer Books, New York, 1996); Mastering the Art of Performance (Oxford, 2006); Planning Your Piano Success (Oxford, 2015); Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas (Oxford, 2017) He is also a co-author of The Well-Tempered Keyboard Teacher (Schirmer Books, New York 1991, 2000). He made the videotapes Memorization in Piano Performance and Performance Practice in Late 20th Century Piano Music (Alfred Music Publishers, Van Nuys, California). As an editor he completed a new critical edition of the 32 Piano Sonatas of Beethoven (Alfred) in four volumes (2002, 2004, 2008 and 2010); as well as the Debussy Etudes (2015). He is currently engaged in a critical edition of the Mozart piano sonatas, scheduled for release in 2018.

Starting in 1979 Stewart shared him home with Christopher Reynolds (1947-2016). Stewart is an animal lover, having as part of his family dogs, cats, and tropical fish. The dogs have been mostly bull terriers with names drawn from history: Plato, Apollo, Andromeda, Hercules, Zeus, Galahad, Lancelot, Socrates, Sampson, and Louis XIV He makes his home just outside of Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, overlooking the Pacific ocean.