Research Summary

My creative research consists of collaboration with School of Music faculty and students as well as other professional colleagues and ensembles with keyboard chamber music and solo repertoire from Renaissance to the present day. As a scholar, I am particularly interested in historical methods of music apprenticeship and instruction, and I have done extensive research on how some of these lost teaching practices can be reincorporated into 21st century keyboard pedagogical practices.

Education

  • Bachelor of Music, Piano Performance, The University of Utah
  • Master of Fine Arts, Historical Performance Practice / Piano, U.C.L.A.. Project: Performance Practice Issues in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas
  • A.R.C.M. (Associate, Royal College of Music) Performers Diploma, Piano Performing, The Royal College of Music, London, England
  • Doctor of Musical Arts, Piano Performance (minor in Music History), The University of Utah. Project: DMA Document: The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book: Historical Background and Performance Practice Issues

Biography

Pamela Palmer Jones, DMA, ARCM, is the 2016-17 recipient of the University of Utah College of Fine Arts Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, given for creating innovative teaching tools that strengthened learning outcomes for undergraduate theory/musicianship students, and outstanding mentoring of Musicianship TAs and DMA students.  She is currently Co-Director of the Early Music Ensemble, and also teaches Music Theory I & II, Form & Analysis, Doctoral Harpsichord Literature I, Harpsichord Private Applied Lessons and Doctoral Performance Practice I & II.  Dr. Jones also served as Coordinator for Musicianship and Class Piano for many years. Prior to her teaching appointment at the University of Utah, Dr. Jones was a piano professor at Salt Lake Community College, and also Harper College, and the College of Lake County, both located in the greater Chicagoland area.

Dr. Jones is a recent recipient of a University Teaching Grant (2020-21) and University Research Grant (2021-22), which helped to fund the world premier recording of baroque composer Pietro Castrucci's Op. 1 Sonatas, along with making performance practice pedagogical videos and a modern scholarly performing edition as part of this project.  Jones collaborated with violinist Gerald Elias and cellist Noriko Kishi in recording all 12 of these previously unknown and neglected sonatas, reading from the original 1707 edition using historical instruments. The CD, Sonate a Violino e Violone o Cembalo, Opera Prima, is now available as a 2-CD set from Centaur Records. [CRC 3932/3933] and on all streaming platforms.

Jones is one of the most active pianists, harpsichordists, and collaborative artists in the Intermountain area, and is a historical keyboard performance specialist. She has performed extensively in the greater intermountain area, Southern California, London (UK), St. Louis, and Chicago.  She continues to perform regularly as soloist and chamber musician at the University of Utah and with the Beethoven Park City International Chamber Music Festival, The Vivaldi Virtuosi, Ogden Chamber Orchestra, and Salt Lake Symphony. She received outstanding professional training at the University of Utah, UCLA, and the Royal College of Music.  Her teachers and mentors include piano professors Solveig Madsen, Susah Duehlmeier, John Barstow, Johana Harris, and Kenneth Drake, and harpsichord professors Bess Karp & Robert Woolley.  In 2011, Dr. Jones was awarded the Permanent Professional Certified Teacher of Music in Piano, conferred by the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). She is also a member of the College of Examiners of the RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) program in Canada and the USA, and is a professional adjudicator for that organization.