Lawrence Blind
Lawrence Blind began his piano studies in Rochester, New York, at the age of six. He made his New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall three years later, and returned for an encore performance at age twelve. As a teenager he was awarded scholarships for piano study at Chautauqua Institution and the Tanglewood Institute. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Piano Performance from the Indiana University School of Music, and the coveted Performer’s Certificate while studying with Nelita True at the Eastman School of Music.
He began his teaching career as an Associate Instructor in Piano while in graduate school at Indiana University, and later established private studios in Maryland and New York. Prior to moving to New Mexico he was an Assistant Professor of Piano at Heidelberg College in Ohio. He is the current president of the Professional Music Teachers of New Mexico (PMTNM), and the state chair of the PMTNM Honors Auditions. In 2022 he was named the Southwest Teacher of Distinction by the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), and he was the PMTNM Teacher of the Year in 2018. He joined the New Mexico School of Music in 2011, bringing over three decades of teaching and performance experience to the school.
Mr. Blind’s teaching philosophy can be summarized as always striving to help and encourage every student to reach his or her highest potential, and to never underestimate the amazing capability of even the youngest student to understand and produce expressive music. His talented students have excelled in the PMTNM Honors Auditions, MTNA Junior & Senior Competitions, Jackie McGehee Young Artists’ Concerto Competition, and Dennis Alexander Piano Competition, and have consistently received scores of First-Class Honors and First-Class Honors with Distinction in RCM examinations.
Mr. Blind was a national winner of the prestigious Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Artist Competition, a winner of the Young Keyboard Artist Association International Piano Competition, and a Semi-Finalist in the William Kapell International Piano Competition. Reviewers praised his playing as “Electrifyingly exciting…amazing control, meltingly lyrical tone, flawless technique, and tremendous sonority…” and demonstrating “…an unfailing sureness or musical means and ends.” In New Mexico Mr. Blind has appeared on the Corrales Cultural Arts Council Series, the Placitas Artist Series, the Grant County Community Concert Association, as a soloist with the Albuquerque Philharmonic Orchestra, and on numerous faculty and guest artist recitals at the University of New Mexico.
