Barbara Lister-Sink is an internationally acclaimed performer and a global leader in injury-preventive keyboard technique. A graduate of Smith College and recipient of the Soloist Diploma and coveted Prix d’Excellence from Utrecht Conservatory, her teachers include Edith Lateiner-Grosz, John Duke, Margaret Mueller, Clemens Sandresky, and Guido Agosti. She is currently Artist-in-Residence and Professor of Piano at Salem College, Winston-Salem, NC. Her critically acclaimed video/DVD Freeing the Caged Bird – Developing Well-Coordinated, Injury-Preventive Piano Technique, is considered a classic work internationally in the field of piano technique and won the 2002 MTNA-Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy National Award. Vladimir Ashkenazy praised it as “A monumental work!"

Formerly keyboardist for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, Lister-Sink has taught at the Amsterdam Muziek Lyceum, Duke University, the Brevard Music Center and was on the Artist Faculty of the Eastman School of Music from 1979 to 1986.  She has performed as soloist throughout Europe and North America and has collaborated with some of the world’s most distinguished musicians, including Arnold Steinhardt, Doriot Anthony Dwyer and Jan DeGaetani. Lister-Sink has performed with the Harvard Chamber Players and at the New Hampshire, Skaneateles, Brevard and Chautauqua summer music festivals. Her numerous performances of contemporary music include collaboration with composers Gyorgy Ligeti, Leon Kirchner, Joseph Schwantner, Frank Martin, Samuel Adler, Vincent Persichetti, and Witold Lutoslawski,

As a world leader in teaching injury-preventive technique, Lister-Sink has given numerous presentations for national and international music organizations, including the Music Teachers National Association, National Keyboard Pedagogy Conference, World Piano Pedagogy Conference, the Canadian Professional Piano Teachers Association, the International Klavar Foundation, Piano Texas/Cliburn International Academy & Festival, and the European Piano Teachers Association, London, England Chapter. She has appeared frequently as state MTNA convention artist, and in 1992 was a presenter and performer for the First World Congress of Arts and Medicine in New York City. Lister-Sink’s articles, interviews and reviews have appeared in Piano & Keyboard, Clavier, American Music Teacher, and Keyboard Companion, as well as in the Southern Medical Journal and Current Research in Arts Medicine. She was cited in the 2000 Centennial Edition of Piano & Keyboard as one of the pedagogical leaders of the 20th century.

Lister-Sink created and now directs the Professional Certificate Program in Injury-Preventive Keyboard Technique at Salem College. In an academically rigorous, scientifically informed, and artistically inspired 7-course curriculum, the Program covers all aspects of understanding, acquiring and teaching injury-preventive technique, including an in-depth study of keyboardists’ injuries, causes and cures. Students include teachers, injured performers, organists, and serious undergraduate and graduate piano and organ majors.  The Program is the first and only one of its kind in the United States.

Through her DVD, intensive training workshops, the Professional Certificate Program, as well as hundreds of workshops at universities, conservatories, summer institutes, AGO chapters and professional organizations, Lister-Sink has helped thousands of keyboardists from around the world remove technical obstacles to their musical development. Her performances are eloquent demonstrations of the marriage of technical freedom and musical artistry.

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