Charisse Baldoria, Piano

Charisse Baldoria joined the Piano Faculty of Hunterdon Academy of the Arts in 2011.  Prior teaching engagements have included Kutztown University, where she served as Assistant Professor from 2003 through 2011; University of the Phillipines (2006-2008); Ateneo de Manila University, Phillipines (2006-2007); and University of Michigan (2000-2003).

Dr. Charisse Baldoria has won prizes in several prestigious national and international piano competitions, among them  Fourth Prize in the San Antonio International Piano Competition (2003); and First Prize in the Society for Musical Arts Young Artist Competition in Ann Arbor, and University of Michigan Concerto Competition (2002). In March 2003, she finished among the top eight competitors (Semifinalists) of the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. In 1999, Miss Baldoria was selected to be among the top four pianists in the Ducrest Young Artist International Competition and was a laureate of the 2002 Washington International Competition. From a young age, she has been a consistent first-prize winner in several Philippine competitions including the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA), the University of the Philippines Piano Competition, among many others. 

A native of Manila, Philippines, she came to the United States in 1998 as a Fulbright scholar and in 2003 earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan where she was awarded numerous scholarships, including the Barbour Scholarship--an award given to "Asian women of the highest academic and professional caliber." 

Dr. Baldoria studied with Logan Skelton at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In addition to her piano training, she studied harpsichord with Edward Parmentier and had fortepiano coachings with Penelope Crawford. She has had master classes and private lessons with numerous teachers and performers, including Boris Petrushansky, Tamas Ungar, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Gabriel Kwok, and Dang Thai Son. She has performed in the United States, the Philippines, and Prague where she participated in the 2002 International Piano Masterclasses. In June 2002, she was awarded a full scholarship in the Young Artists Program of the highly selective and prestigious TCU-Cliburn Institute. 

Dr. Baldoria also has an active interest in composition. In the Philippines, she wrote and arranged commercial music for television and radio for big companies such as Philippine Airlines and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. Moreover, she composed songs for the movie soundtrack of Anak ng Bayan (Son of the Nation), a movie on Philippine hero and revolutionary Andres Bonifacio. At the University of Michigan, she studied with composers Erik Santos and Susan Botti, and electronic music composition with Santos and Evan Chambers. Her composition Throb---an electronic composition utilizing digitally manipulated pulsar pulses---was featured in the 2001 Electronic Music Microfestival in Ann Arbor. Her other interests include 35mm photography, writing poetry, and astronomy.