WILLIAM CERNY
Professor Emeritus of Music
Piano
M.Mus., Yale University, 1954
E-mail: cerny.1@nd.edu
William Cerny is Professor of Music Emeritus in the Department of Music at the University of Notre Dame. He was Chairman of the Music Department between 1972 and 1981. Before that he served for 13 years (1959-1972) on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music.
As a young performer he won the highest awards given by the Music Education League of New York and the National Teachers Guild, appearing several times as soloist with the Little Orchestra Society of New York under Thomas Scherman. During his student years he studied with such teachers as Valerie Conried, Arthur Hague, Isabel Vanguerrova and Mme. Simon Barrere. After completing his undergraduate and graduate studies at Yale, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude graduate, he worked for five years between 1954 and 1959 as a professional accompanist out of New York City, touring the US with such artists as cellist Aldo Parisot, international concert comedienne Anna Russell, pantomimist Angna Enters, and the Columbia Artists' male concert quartet "The Revelers." His professional work in New York City also included accompanying numerous artists in Town Hall recitals.
From 1959 to 1972, when Professor Cerny was on the faculty of the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music, he taught Piano, Music History, Accompanying, Sight-reading, Piano Literature, European History, American History, and Intellectual History in addition to remaining active as a public performer. From 1963 on, he held a dual Associate Professorship rank, one in Humanities and one in Music Literature. In 1968 he developed his "Explorations into Piano Literature" for presentation before college and university audiences throughout the country. An outgrowth of these concerts was his series of weekly radio programs broadcast for years via the National Public Radio network. From 1968 to 1972, Cerny was the administrative director of the Master of Music degree in Performance and Literature at the Eastman School.
Through his extensive performing and teaching experience, Professor Cerny has developed a very large solo and chamber repertoire, enabling him to celebrate the Beethoven bicentennial in 1970 by performing the complete 62 Haydn, the 19 Mozart and the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. His piano concerto repertoire includes 36 of the standard works in the literature, many of which he has performed with orchestra. Since his appointment at Notre Dame he has maintained an active performing schedule that has included performances as soloist and as chamber musician both on campus and at other colleges and universities. He has made five separate guest appearances with the Chicago Symphony String Quartet. At Notre Dame he teaches advances piano, chamber music, piano literature, and music history. His graduate sonata literature courses offer graduate students the opportunity to study and perform the major sonatas in the violin, cello, trumpet, horn, trombone and clarinet literatures.
Solo and chamber performances, along with masterclasses, have taken Prof. Cerny to scores of university campuses throughout the U.S. He has also made five separate guest appearances with the Chicago Symphony String Quartet. Prof. Cerny has made over 65 cassette recordings of solo piano literature, including over 150 separate titles. His series of weekly radio programs has been carried by 30 NPR stations throughout the country, and presently his "Explorations into Piano Literature" can be heard on Notre Dame's WSND-FM (88.9) on Monday evenings from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m.
