Keyboard studies, including piano, organ and harpsichord, offers students extensive opportunities for continuing their training in these instruments or for starting instruction if they have had no prior experience.

Qualified students may choose to major in piano or organ, either as part of the BA degree with a major in music or as the applied area in the BM degree in performance or in music education.

Many students whose major is outside the Department of Music opt to study piano or organ as an elective, either building on years of previous study, or in many cases starting as a beginner. (Piano and organ lessons are regularly chosen to fulfill the college's fine arts requirement of a semester of study in a studio course.)

A distinct advantage of a smaller department such as Hope's is the opportunity for frequent performing experience whether in studio classes, Keyboard Performance Classes, Student Recitals, or, as upperclassmen, individual solo or joint recitals.

Excellent instruments are available to students for both practicing and performing. The college has two Steinway D (nine-foot) concert grand pianos, one each in Dimnent Chapel and Wichers Auditorium.

There are six practice rooms with Kawai grand pianos, and the piano teaching studios have seven-foot Steinway and Mason & Hamlin grands. For beginning piano class instruction and keyboard skills classes for the majors, there is a new lab of sixteen Yamaha Clavinova keyboards. The department also owns several Yamaha Disklavier pianos. (A description of the fine organs and newly commissioned harpsichord may be found elsewhere.)

Please visit the Pipe Organ Encounter website for information on our summer Pipe Organ camp!

Please also visit the Hope College Young Artists Piano Competition information page. You will find a printable (pdf) application and competition guidelines.