AP Studio

    Charles Parsons, native to Big Pines near Wrightwood, California, is a graduate of California Polytechnic State University, Pomona and California State University, Northridge. His principal teachers include Kristi Lobitz, Nadia Shpachenko, John Perry, and Awadagin Pratt. Over the course of his studies, Charles has played in a plethora of masterclasses for renowned artist-teachers such as Edward Auer, Victor Rosenbaum, Jerome Lowenthal, and John Perry, among others. Charles has participated in summer festivals including the Chautauqua Institution Music Festival, the Montecito International Music Festival, the John Perry Academy of Music, and the American Liszt Society Festival. Charles has also served as the piano department teaching assistant at Cal State Northridge. Selected performances include Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Pasadena Community Orchestra in 2011, and eight of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes in a mini-festival at Cal Poly Pomona for Liszt’s bicentennial, where he shared the stage with Mykola Suk. Charles is currently in his first year of study at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he is working towards a Doctor of Musical Arts degree.