Organ Institute

Nicole Keller is in demand as a concert artist, adjudicator, and clinician. She has concertized in the States and abroad in venues such as St. Patrick Cathedral, New York; Cathédrale Notre-Dame, Paris; Dom St. Stephan, Passau; St. Patrick Cathedral, Armagh, Northern Ireland; and The Kazakh National University for the Arts, Astana, Kazakhstan. Ms. Keller specializes in eclectic programs suited to instrument and audience with a desire to expand the listener’s horizons, pairing familiar sounds and genres with less familiar ones. Her performances with orchestras includes concertos, works for small chamber orchestra, and large works involving organ, harpsichord, and piano. She has extensive experience as a chamber musician and as a continuo player, including many performances of Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions, the Christmas Oratorio, and the Mass in B minor in addition to a host of cantatas and baroque chamber music.

As a teacher, Ms. Keller strives to foster and model a commitment to excellence in performance, scholarship and self-growth as students deepen their love of music and their instrument. Her students have been accepted into and attended prestigious graduate schools throughout the country and enjoy successful musical careers in a variety of settings.

Ms. Keller’s work as a church musician includes work with volunteer and professional choirs and instrumental ensembles devoted to the highest level of music for worship. She has created organ and choral scholar programs at small and mid-size parishes, developed successful children’s choir programs, and has led choirs on tour in the states and abroad including choral residencies at Bristol Cathedral, U.K. and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland.

Ms. Keller received the Performer’s Certificate and the Master of Music Degree in Organ Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York under the tutelage of David Higgs. While at Eastman, she studied continuo with Arthur Haas and improvisation with Gerre Hancock. She received the Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, where she studied piano with George Cherry and Jean Stell and organ with Margaret Scharf.

Dr. Caroline Robinson joined the Department of Organ as an assistant professor in the fall of 2024. Robinson is an organist, pedagogue, church musician, and music collaborator who has been featured in performance across the United States.

In addition to her numerous US performances, Robinson has performed internationally in England, Denmark, France, and Germany. Her playing has been broadcast multiple times on American Public Media’s Pipedreams, Pipedreams LIVE!, and Philadelphia-based public radio station WRTI’s Wanamaker Organ Hour. She has been a featured performer at conventions of the Organ Historical Society, the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, and the American Guild of Organists (AGO). She performed on the closing concert at the 2022 National AGO Convention in Seattle, collaborating with Seattle Pro Musica on choral and organ works including James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados. Her performances in 2024-2025 will take her to the Gulangyu Organ Museum in Gulangyu, China; the West Point Cadet Chapel; the Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, OR; and St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh. She will give masterclasses in Haddonfield, NJ and Seattle, WA.

Robinson is a laureate of the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance (NYACOP), held as part of the 2018 AGO convention in Kansas City. She holds first prize from the 11th annual Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival in 2008 and from the 10th annual West Chester University Organ Competition in 2010. She was a semifinalist in the 2014 Dublin International Organ Competition. In 2016, she was chosen as one of The Diapason’s “20 Under 30” promising young organists in the United States.

Previously, Robinson held the post of organist and associate choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta. She is an active continuo player with early music ensembles, having performed at the Rochester Early Music Festival, San Francisco’s American Bach Soloists Academy, and most recently with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. She is represented as a solo recitalist in North America by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.

Robinson completed her undergraduate work at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Alan Morrison. Aided by a grant from the J. William Fulbright fellowship fund, she studied at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse with Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen (organ) and Yasuko Bouvard (harpsichord). Robinson holds the doctor of musical arts and the master of music in organ performance and literature degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with David Higgs. Robinson also received the performer’s certificate and the advanced teaching certificate in theory pedagogy from Eastman.