Assistant Professor
Applied Violin and Viola
Orchestra
Contact Information
217 Cogswell
724-357-4566
Courses Taught
Applied Violin
Applied Viola
Symphony Orchestra
Music Theory
Class Strings
Degrees
DMA, University of Iowa
MM, University of Iowa
MM, University of Texas
BM, University of Texas
Biography
Colleen
Ferguson is an active performer and teacher of both violin and viola. She
holds both a bachelor’s (2002) and a master’s (2004) degree in Music Education
from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was also a faculty member of
the UT Austin String Project. Subsequently, Ferguson earned both an MM
(2012) and DMA (2015) in Violin Performance from the University of Iowa. An
enthusiastic teacher of students of all ages, Ferguson taught general music
and orchestra in the El Paso, Texas, public schools, served as the graduate
teaching assistant in Violin for five years at the University of Iowa, taught at
the West Music Conservatory in Coralville, Iowa, and built a diverse studio of
violin and viola students at Eastern Kentucky University, where she also
directed the university’s string chamber orchestra.
She has played
professionally as a member of several orchestras, including the El Paso
Symphony, Las Cruces Symphony, Ottumwa Symphony, and Orchestra Iowa and has
played with Mannheim Steamroller and the Transiberian Orchestra. Ferguson
has been an active participant at several international music festivals
throughout Europe, including festivals in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia. She
is frequently featured as a guest artist/lecturer/master teacher at schools
throughout the country, including the University of Minnesota at Morris, Cornell
College, the University of Texas at El Paso, the Loma Linda Academy, and Florida
Southern College.
She enjoys sharing her knowledge with others and has presented
several educational sessions across the United States at national conferences, including
the annual American String Teachers Association National Conferences, the
National Association for Music Education Annual Conferences, and the Biennial
Suzuki Association of the Americas Conference. In addition to performing and
teaching strings, Ferguson has a keen interest in the works of Sir Charles
Villiers Stanford. Her critical performance edition of Stanford’s Fourth String
Quartet was used in a commercial recording project of Stanford’s complete string
quartets. This album will be available beginning September 2018.