Butler University Piano Competition (BUPC)

BUPC Timeline & Important Dates

• October 15: Registration opens.
• Friday, January 24, 2025: Preliminary Round video recordings due by 11:59 PM Eastern Time.
• On or before January 27, 2025: Finalists announced to participants via email.
• Saturday, February 8, 2025: BUPC Piano Day in-person event with a Final Round, workshops, etc.

BUVC Piano Day: February 8, 2025

The BUPC Piano Day is the live portion of the competition taking place on Butler’s campus. The event includes a Final round, masterclass and workshops, lunch with current students, a showcase recital, and closing ceremony. A schedule overview will be available closer to the date. Families and teachers are welcome to observe all events!

BUPC Piano Day Schedule Overview (subject to change)

Coming soon!

Preliminary Round Details

• The Preliminary Round will be assessed via an online video recording. 
• The Preliminary Round will be limited to the first 50 applicants. Submissions will close after that number of applicants is reached.
• Pianists must perform at least two or more contrasting compositions, representing different style periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionist, 20th/21st Century), totaling 30 minutes or less.
• All works must be memorized.
• Cuts (any deletions of the printed score) in the music are not permitted.
• Arrangements or simplifications of an original score are not permitted
• The repertoire will be the same for both Rounds
• No changes in repertoire may be made after submitting the preliminary round recording. Contestants will be notified on or before January 17, 2025 if they have advanced to the Final Round.

Videos should be prepared and submitted as follows:

• Each selection should be video recorded in a single, unedited take. 
• Submit one video file for each selection (i.e., if you submit 3 selections, you will prepare 3 individual video files).
• The title of each video file must contain the contestant’s name and the name of the selection performed in that video.
• The camera angle must include the contestant’s face and hands, and include a complete shot from the contestant’s feet to the top of the head.
• Do not move the camera, zoom, or cut to different camera angles during the performance.
• Avoid recording in spaces that are overly live/reverberant.  We want to hear you clearly!
• Do not edit the audio in any way.
• A video submission form will be emailed to each BUPC participant after registration is received.  You will submit your videos by uploading them to YouTube, Google Drive, Vimeo, etc. and submitting the links via the online submission form.

Audition Option for High School Seniors

High school seniors participating in the competition may use their BUPC  Preliminary Round performances as an audition for admission into the Butler University School of Music as well as for music scholarship consideration. To utilize this option, students must apply to Butler University  as a music major via the Common App, listing piano as their primary instrument. Students should complete their Common Application before submitting their BUPC Preliminary Round performance videos. 

Please note, students must be admitted academically to Butler University in order to be admitted into the School of Music. Students may still audition prior to receiving their academic admission decision. Questions? Email JCAadmissions@butler.edu or call 317-940-9656.

The Final Round will take place live and in-person in the Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. A full event schedule will be posted in the weeks before the live events. The live rounds are open to all participants, their families and friends, and private teachers. The event will include:

• Final Round on the recital hall stage
• A showcase recital with current Butler piano majors and alumni
• Clinics and workshops with Butler faculty
• Lunch with current music majors in campus dining hall
• Closing awards ceremony

Dr. Kate Boyd, Professor of Piano, Piano Area Coordinator, BUPC Director

An active soloist and chamber musician, American pianist Kate Boyd has performed solo recitals at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Schubert’s birth house in Vienna, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Musikhalle Hamburg, in addition to many places throughout the US, Europe and Canada. As a faculty member at Butler University, she has appeared as a soloist with each of the University’s large ensembles in performances ranging from Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

A passionate advocate for the music of our time, Boyd has performed many world premieres, including James Woodward’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Ensemble. Her first solo CD, Music for the End of Winter (Ravello), consists of previously-unrecorded works for solo piano by composers Daniel Koontz, Michael Schelle, Frank Felice, Howard Frazin and John Halle. Her second solo CD, consisting of works by John Cage (Navona), was met with critical acclaim and has received more than 100,000 digital downloads and streams to date.
With violinist April Johnson and cellist Peter Seidenberg, Boyd is a founding member of the NewYork-based Oracle Trio, a piano trio that performs works from the eighteenth century to the present. The Oracle Trio has been a featured ensemble for COLLECTANEA, a multimedia dance and music event, was a featured conferenceartist for the Indiana Music Teachers Association, and has performed on concert series in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, and elsewhere. In addition,Oracle has commissioned works from Daniel Koontz and Douglas McConnell, and champions works by contemporary American composers including Marc Mellits,David MacDonald and Samuel Adler.
In addition to her work with Oracle, Boyd regularly collaborates with musicians and artists from various disciplines. In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, she performed a work by composer Elaine Agnew with the Orbit Dance Centre dance troupe, as well as Bach’s C Minor Partita in live performances with the dance program at Butler University. She has performed dozens of chamber music works, including a televised performance of George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening, for two pianos and two percussion; and John Corigliano’s Chiaroscuro, for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart.
As an educator, Boyd is also active as a conference clinician. She has presented lectures and workshops at state, regional, and international conferences, including the International John Cage Conference in Malaysia, the European Piano Teachers Association Conference in Germany, the College Music Society Great Lakes Regional Conference, and various state conferences. She is in demand as an adjudicator,and has judged for many events, including the ISSMA state competition, the MTNA Southern Division Competitions, and Stickley Piano Competition. Boyd has also served on the national Fulbright screening committee for piano applicants. She regularly gives masterclasses to students through teacher organizations and universities, and has worked with students of all ages.
Boyd has received numerous awards and prizes, including the 2019 Teacher of the Year award fromthe Indiana Music Teachers Association and the 2017 Outstanding Professor of the Year award from Butler University. She has also received a Creative RenewalFellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis, and an Indiana Arts Commission Grant.  Other awards and prizes include a Fulbright scholarshipand fellowships at the Tanglewood Center, Blossom Music Center, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and Prussia Cove (England).
Boyd received her Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory, under the tutelage of Russian pianist Sedmara Rutstein; her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she studied with renowned pianist and pedagogue Gilbert Kalish; and a Diploma from the Hannover (Germany) Academy of Music,where she studied with Israeli master teacher Arie Vardi. She also studied with Estonian pianist Arbo Valdma at the Cologne (Germany) Academy of Music, under the auspices of a Fulbright Grant. In addition to her major teachers, she received extensive coachings and attended residential masterclasses with Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, Gyorgy Sebok, John Perry, Reinbert DeLeeuw, and Ronald Copes, among others.
Kate Boyd is Professor of Piano and Piano Area Coordinator at Butler University, where she was recently promoted to the rank of full professor. In the summers, she serves as the head of the piano faculty of the internationally-renowned Interlochen Arts Camp in northern Michigan. Formerly, she was on the faculty of Heidelberg University, in Tiffin, Ohio, and for ten summers taught at Kinhaven Music School, in Weston, Vermont.
Official Website
Visit Dr. Boyd’s Blog: The Piano Prof

More faculty to be announced!

To be announced soon!