UNO School of Music piano professor Dr. Kristín Jónína Taylor was awarded one of three 2022 Liana K. Sandin Grants-in-Aid awarded from the Mu Phi Epsilon Professional Music Fraternity Foundation Board.

The award will be used towards research into a piano sonata written by Joanne Baker (1923-2004), an internationally renowned piano pedagogue. Dr. Taylor was a student of Mrs. Baker during her undergraduate study at the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory of Music.  Mrs. Baker became the UMKC Conservatory’s longest-serving faculty member, teaching at the school for 49 years and chairing the Keyboard Division for the last 25 of those years. Joanne chaired the prestigious Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition for two decades in Salt Lake City and was the first American artist invited to teach in China after the Cultural Revolution.

This research will include an academically-researched typesetting and publishing of the Baker sonata, making it more widely available, as well as a recording for professional release.