For over four decades, Carol Cook has taught music fundamentals to students aged 4 to 84. Her classical training with renowned pianists such as Barbara Lister-Sink and Kerry Taliaferro, and her work with a broad range of instrumentalists, singers and orchestras, all inform her receptive yet focused teaching style.
Both from a performance and educational standpoint, Ms. Cook has established a distinguished career as a chamber musician, recitalist, and teacher. She has garnered an enviable reputation as a performer whose impassioned music-making and thrilling style bring new life to the concert stage. A remarkably versatile artist, she has performed with the American Institute for Musical Studies (AIMS) Orchestra in Graz, Austria; the Augusta Symphony; Augusta’s Trio D’Esprit; and the North State Chorale, to name a few. A highly sought-after piano teacher in the Augusta area, Ms. Cook devotes a substantial amount of her time to teaching and has been instrumental in the high achievements of her students both in local and national competitions.
Ms. Cook has also enjoyed a lengthy career as an opera coach and accompanist, working with orchestras and opera companies both in the U.S. and abroad. She has appeared in recital and chamber music concerts, and has accompanied vocal artists from the Metropolitan Opera and other companies. Ms. Cook has performed with the Stuttgart Opera and Stuttgart Ballet companies in Germany, The German-American Chorus of Stuttgart, the Young Artists’ Opera Theater, the Greensboro Opera Company, the St. Petersburg (FL) Opera, the Burlington Boys’ Choir, and the North State Sinfonia. Her New York credits include performances with the Asian-American Dance Theater and the New York Academy of Ballet.
She has been a member of the accompanying staffs of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Wake Forest University, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Salem College, and Augusta University. She currently is keyboardist for the Augusta Symphony and the Aiken Civic Orchestra, and is a member of the accompanying staff at the University of South Carolina-Aiken. She is Principal Keyboardist for the Lyra Vivace Chamber Orchestra.
Ms. Cook is also a member of the chamber ensemble Trio d’Esprit, which has performed as part of the Westabou Festival, as well as the Reid Art Series in Augusta, Georgia. Her 2018 appearances included performances in North Carolina and South Carolina with Italian violinist Matteo Fedeli, in concerts sponsored by the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry. In the summer of 2018, she joined the faculty of the renowned American Institute for Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria.
A native of North Carolina, Ms. Cook holds a Bachelor of Music degree from UNC-Greensboro; a Master of Music in opera coaching and accompanying from the College-Conservatory of Music – University of Cincinnati; and a Diploma in advanced study in opera coaching from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunstin Stuttgart, Germany.
Ms. Cook is a member of many professional organizations including: the National Guild of Piano Teachers, Music Teachers National Association, Augusta Music Teachers Association, Aiken Music Teachers Association, and the National Federation of Music Clubs. She is past-president of the Winston-Salem Piano Teachers Association, where her students were frequent winners of the yearly Moxley Competition. As a member of the Guild, two of her students achieved the Early Bach Plaque, an honor awarded to only 5 students in the United States. Her students regularly receive “Superior” ratings at local festivals.