Keyboard & Vocal Faculty

CARL
CRANMER

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PIANO

325, Swope Music Building
610-436-2489
CCranmer@wcupa.edu

Education

• D.M.A., The Juilliard School
• M.M., The Juilliard School
• P.S. (Professional Studies), The Juilliard School
• B.M., Oberlin Conservatory of Music

Thoughts on SOM

For all students and faculty at the School of Music, this is a very exciting year, following our recent relocation to the new Swope Music Building and Performing Arts Center in January, 2007. This monumental facility presents students and faculty with an exceptionally attractive learning environment architecturally and aesthetically, which is sure to inspire us to be the best artists and musicians possible. To the delight of the keyboard faculty, there are now two new superior performing venues which house state-of-the-art recording equipment. As an All-Steinway school, the new facilities also contain eighty-eight brand-new Steinway pianos. This is a very attractive asset to all prospective students, especially to those potentially majoring in piano. Many of us are excited to share the space under the same umbrella as the Art and Theater departments, which will further encourage future interdepartmental collaboration. At a time when Chester County is undergoing a surge in economic development, I'm positive that this unification and establishment of the new Regional Performing Arts Center will have a magnetic effect on those who love and support the arts in the Philadelphia Area, and will identify West Chester University as a significant cultural center throughout the United States. The performance level of incoming students is getting higher every year, and recently the School of Music has attracted and enrolled several students from China, France, Hungary, Japan, Korea, the, Romania, and Russia. I am also impressed by the faculty -- I am lucky that my colleagues at the School of Music are not only truly exceptional in their areas of specialization, but are nice people to boot.

Mission at SOM

With every additional year I teach at West Chester University, the more clearly I realize that my deepest aspirations lie beyond simply being a teacher of the fundamentals of piano playing. I aim to encourage students to use whatever knowledge gleaned from our interaction to teach themselves. Ideally, I would like to see every student develop into an independent, thoughtful musician, share my reverence and appreciation for the inexplicable spiritual power of music, and in turn, communicate their enthusiasm for music with others, through performing or teaching.

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Carl Cranmer is an internationally acclaimed pianist whose performances have taken him throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He made his orchestral debut as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age nine, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488. Since then, he has appeared as a soloist with other orchestras throughout the United States and Asia, and Europe, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of England, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Portugal, the Juilliard Orchestra, Helena Symphony, the Incheon Philharmonic and Daegu Grand Symphony Orchestra.  The New York Times critic James Oestreich praised his playing of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the Juilliard Orchestra, writing "He made light work of Liszt’s fiendishly demanding octaves, scales, and glissandos while displaying a fine lyrical strain and a lovely, controlled tone.  An active solo recitalist and chamber musician, Dr. Cranmer has collaborated with distinguished artists including the Grammy Award-winning Takács Quartet, violinists Axel Strauss and Akiko Suwanai and tenor Robert White, and baritone Randall Scarlata.  

Recent performance highlights include appearances at Seoul’s Lotte Concert Hall in April 2026 with the Korea Coop Symphony Orchestra, performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F, two concerts in Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in 2026 presented by Parma Recordings featuring newly commissioned works for cello and piano with Wells School of Music colleague Ovidiu Marinescu, and concerto appearances with the Helena Symphony and Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra. 

Dr. Cranmer has appeared in many of the world’s leading concert venues, including Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Verizon Hall, the Academy of Music, and the Perelman Theater in Philadelphia. His performances have been televised internationally and broadcast on NPR as well as major radio stations across the United States, Canada, and Japan, and his recent recital engagements have included performances in Seoul, Guangzhou, Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, Foshan, Anchorage AK, New Haven, CT and Salt Lake City, UT.

A prizewinner in several prestigious competitions, Dr. Cranmer received both the Spanish Music Prize and Finalist Prize at the Paloma O’Shea International Piano Competition in Santander, Spain, which led to two concert tours of Spain. He was also awarded the Grand Prize at the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition and a laureate in many other international competitions.  

His recordings include Soirée, featuring works by Poulenc, Fauré, Liszt, Granados, and Samuel Barber; the Complete Published Solo Piano Music of Samuel Barber, and Barber’s Piano Concerto with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra. More recently, he recorded two albums of newly commissioned works for cello and piano with Romanian cellist Ovidiu Marinescu, titled Resurgence 3:  New Works for 'Cello and Piano.  His repertoire is diverse, and includes not only the standard repertoire but works by Sweelinck, Kapustin, Dutilleux, Catoire, Medtner, and many less known Romantic and composers from the 20th and 21st centuries.  

As a dedicated teacher and mentor at the Wells School of Music, Dr. Cranmer is committed to helping students develop both technical excellence and artistic individuality.  His teaching philosophy emphasizes technical efficiency while encouraging ing a thorough understanding of the piano’s mechanics and expressive tonal possibilites. In addition, he emphasizes the importance of a systematic and disciplined practice regimen, equipping students with the tools for long-term artistic development.  His students benefit from the perspective of a performer whose career spans major international stages, chamber music collaborations, recording projects, and concerto appearances around the world.

In additional to his teaching at the Wells School of Music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania he also serves as Visiting Artist Faculty at the Guangdong Open College-Conservatory in Foshan, China, and has also previously been a visiting artist teacher in Kookmin and Yonsei Universities in South Korea.  Since 2020, he has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music International Piano Festival.  From 2016-18 he founded and directed the American Summer International Piano Forum at West Chester University, and has served on the juries of numerous competitions, including the 12th Moscow International Frederick Chopin Competition in Foshan, China.  Most Recently he was a juror on the Philadelphia Regional Audition of the inaugural year of the 2026 Manhattan International Piano Competition.   In 2027 he will participate in the Seattle Young Artists' Music Festival and the Namhe International Piano Festival in South Korea.     

Dr. Cranmer earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Robert Shannon, and his Professional Studies Certificate, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Martin Canin.   While in Salzburg, Austria at the Sommerakademie, he also worked with pianists Karlheinz Kämmerling, Hans Graf, and Jacob Lateiner.    

Videos and Audio