Feature Presenters

Leila Viss creates imaginative, tech-savvy resources for her Colorado piano studio and website. She founded Space to Create, empowering pianists and teachers to connect with their creativity through improvisation, composition and arranging. A longtime church musician and dynamic speaker, she co-authored Found in the Wake, a memoir of loss and resilience. Viss is a frequent presenter at MTNA National Conference, Colorado's 2024 MTNA Foundation Fellow and a 2025 Frances Clark Center Outstanding Service Recognition Award recipient. You can read more about Leila at: www.LeilaViss.com

Viss will open our conference on Thursday, November 6th with the first part of her three session series on the Creative Music Teacher. Her session titles will be:

Why You Need Space to Create

Reconnect with your creativity to nurture your mind, heart, and soul

What Your Space to Create Needs

Discover activities that spark curiosity and cultivate lifelong skills in your teaching and playing

Where to Find Space to Create

Integrate creativity seamlessly with practical strategies that engage and retain students

Kevin Chance serves as Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Alabama where he coordinates the Gloria Narramore Moody Piano Area. As soloist and collaborator, Kevin has performed throughout the United States and abroad, and recent orchestral appearances have included Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto and the Beethoven Triple Concerto, Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, and Saint-Saëns’s Le Carnaval des animaux. He also serves are principal keyboard of the Tuscaloosa Symphony. Performing regularly as a chamber musician, Kevin has been a member of the Semplice Duo with flutist Cristina Ballatori for the past 24 years, and their performances have included world premiers at the National Flute Association Conference as well as recitals in Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Alabama, and New York as well as Mexico and Europe. In 2025, they will also be releasing a new disc of American flute music on the Centaur label.

Kevin has recently received a number of accolades for his teaching. Most recently, he was named a 2025 Foundation Fellow of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), and he was named as a Leadership Board Faculty Fellow for the University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences for excellence in research and teaching. In 2019, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Steinway and Sons Music Teacher Hall of Fame in New York City and was named 2019 Music Educator of the Year by the Arts Council of Tuscaloosa. Additionally, he was named the 2015 Teacher of the Year by the Alabama Music Teachers Association. Kevin maintains an award-winning studio of college and pre-college students, and his students have garnered awards at the national and international levels. In demand as a clinician and adjudicator, he frequently presents at the MTNA National Conference as well as state and local music teacher organizations throughout the country. In January 2021, Kevin served as the headliner clinician for the University of Georgia Piano Symposium and he serves on the faculty of the New Orleans Piano Institute each summer.

Kevin holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Louisiana State University, and Birmingham-Southern College, and his former teachers include Barry Snyder, Constance Knox Carroll, Anne Koscielny, Ann Schein, William DeVan, and Betty Sue Shepherd. Kevin recently served as President of the American Matthay Association for Piano, and he currently serves as President of MTNA for the 2025-2027 biennium. He also recently joined the roster of Alfred Publishing, and his first three-volume series co-authored with Ingrid Clafield, Rare Recital Treasures, will be released between October 2024 and Fall 2025.

Boulanger Initiative: Celebrating, Performing, and Supporting Music Composed by Women

Topic: Creative Composing

Boulanger Initiative advocates for women and all gender marginalized composers. We foster inclusivity and representation to expand and enrich the collective understanding of what music is, has been, and can be. We promote music composed by women through performance, education, research, consulting, and commissions. We envision a future in which Boulanger Initiative becomes obsolete when women and gender-marginalized composers no longer need our advocacy.

Kathryn Cruz is a Grammy-nominated vocalist, decades-long educator, and Director of Learning and Engagement at Boulanger Initiative. She oversees all education and engagement programs like residencies and workshops, virtual programming, curriculum development, orchestral and ensemble partnerships, and much more.