Bryan Stanley

Biography

Dr. Bryan Stanley (b. 1972) is an accomplished pianist-composer, collaborator, and teacher. His music is published by Hal Leonard, Boosey & Hawkes, and G. Schirmer, and includes concert arrangements of American folksongs as well as adaptations of Aaron Copland's music.

Stanley's compositions have received numerous awards and distinctions. His Second Piano Sonata was one of three major works recorded by Kristín Taylor on the Navona Records label, contributing to the recording's First Prize in The American Prize's Best Recorded Performance category. The Music Teachers National Association awarded him Honorable Mention in the 2019 Distinguished Composer of the Year Competition for his Three Concert Etudes for Piano, commissioned by the Nebraska Music Teachers Association. His Three Songs on Poems of Carl Sandburg, premiered by Kyle Stegall at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, received First Prize in the 2020 Robert Avalon Competition for Composers. Earlier in his career, Stanley won a national chamber opera competition for The Cask of Amontillado, which was premiered by the Des Moines Metro Opera in 1997. Conducted by the composer, the production received an enthusiastic review in Opera News.

In 2021, The National Composers Orchestra premiered his four-movement Holiday Suite for String Orchestraat Iowa Western Community College. Other orchestral and chamber works of his have been performed across numerous venues including the Šiauliai Piano Duo Festival (Lithuania), Harpa Symphony Hall (Iceland), University of Nebraska (Omaha and Kearney), St. Louis Community College, Indiana University Southeast, Simpson College, the Park City Beethoven Festival, Utah Opera, Park City Community Church, Lewis University, and KBYU Radio. His four-harp concerto was premiered at the Salt Lake City Mormon Tabernacle in 2011. His madrigal “Orpheus and His Lute” was performed by the University of Nebraska Chamber Singers (2018) and the Waldorf Schola Cantorum (2016), while his Four Songs, settings of poetry by Kansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley, were featured at Waldorf University in 2017.

As a pianist, Stanley has enjoyed a distinguished career as a soloist and collaborative artist. He composed and premiered his First Piano Concerto with the University of Oklahoma Chamber Orchestra in 2000 and later performed his Second Piano Concerto with Caritas Symphonia in San Francisco in 2016, with additional performances at St. Louis Community College and the Riverton Metropolitan Symphony. In 2023, Stanley was called upon to replace the scheduled soloist for the premiere of Frederick Hanna's Piano Concerto at Creighton University with only two days' notice. Stanley was a frequent guest collaborative artist with the Park City International Chamber Music Festival (2009–2015) and performed as a member of the Beethoven Festival Trio with Russell and Leslie Harlow. He has also performed twice for President Bill Clinton.

Additional highlights of Stanley's performing career include serving as a featured pianist at the Gina Bachauer International Summer Piano Festival in 2007 and recording with trumpeter Marc Reed on the MarkMasters label in 2015 at Fort Lewis College.

Dr. Stanley earned the Bachelor of Music degree from Simpson College, where he studied piano with Robert Larsen; the Master of Music degree from the University of Missouri–Kansas City, studying with Joanne Baker; and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied composition with Carolyn Bremer and piano with Ed Gates. He also studied with Robert Spillman at the Aspen Music Festival.

Stanley teaches piano in West Omaha and has performed with Opera Omaha and the Omaha Symphony. Together with his wife, pianist Kristín Jónína Taylor, he forms the Atlantic Piano Duo, performing regularly throughout the United States.