Owen Dodds is a pianist and composer from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He currently lives in New York where he performs as a soloist, chamber musician, and composer/performer of his own work. Owen’s career has recently taken him to such venues as Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, the Czech Center New York, and Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater. He has been fortunate to collaborate with such artists as Gabriel Kahane and Eduardo Leandro. 

 

As a soloist, Owen has won prizes in competitions including MTNA Southern Division, the Baltimore International Piano Festival Competition, and the Malaysian International Music Competition. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with the UNC School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra and the National Academic Orchestra of Ukraine. As a result of the 2024 Stony Brook University Concerto Competition, Owen was selected to perform Bartok’s 3rd piano concerto with the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Xian Zhang in February, 2025. 

 

Owen is an active collaborator, with chamber music accounting for the majority of his concertizing. His trio with Kelsi Doolittle (clarinet) and Stephanie Bonk (violin) recently received the Donald Spieth Award for chamber music and hence will be performing public recitals this October in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Owen’s duo with Drake Duffer (guitarist) have been recipients of numerous awards and was featured on PBS North Carolina. 

 

Owen has enjoyed growing demand as a composer, often writing pieces for his specific musical collaborators. His works have been featured as a part of Stony Brook’s Contemporary Chamber Players, The New School’s Tech Forward concert series, Blairsville Chamber Music Festival, as well as the Weekend of Chamber Music festival in the Catskills of NY.  

 

Owen began his official music studies in the high school program at UNC School of the Arts, first receiving instruction from Clifton Matthews and later continued with Dr. Dmitri Shteinberg for his bachelor's degree. In 2020, Owen received his master of music degree from Boston University, where he studied piano performance with Gila Goldstein and composition with Ketty Nez. From 2020-2022, Owen studied at Mannes School of Music under the guidance of Vladimir Valjarević. Owen is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University under the guidance of Gilbert Kalish.