Dr. Michael Rector

Michael Rector is Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. As a performer, he is best known for piano duo collaborations with Sylvia Hong. They have played recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul. In March 2021, Sylvia and Michael won 1st prize at the Ellis Competition for Duo-Pianists. They have toured in Eastern Europe, performing with the Georgian Sinfonietta and Black Sea Symphony. Highlights of their numerous tours in Korea include playing two sold-out concerts on the same day in Busan, and an invitation to perform with the orchestra in the Olympic city of Gangneung during the 2018 winter games.

Michael holds a doctoral degree from Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Philip Kawin. He also earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, majoring in comparative literature. Michael has presented lecture-recitals and masterclasses both at home and abroad, including at China Conservatory in Beijing, the University of Kassel in Germany, and numerous universities and music schools in Korea. His articles on piano pedagogy and performance practice have appeared in the journals American Music Teacher, Clavier Companion, and the MTNA e-Journal. His efforts to understand how great piano playing works led to research in performance-oriented musicology. His scholarly articles have been published in Perspectives of New Music, Empirical Musicology Review and Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie.