Name: Matthew Manwarren
Title: Professor of Music
Education: D.M.A., University of Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music
M.M., University of Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music
B.M., Piano Performance, Texas Tech University
Office: 101 Conservatory of Music
Phone: 803/323-4639
E-mail: manwarrenm@winthrop.edu
Area(s): Piano
Pianist Matthew Manwarren is currently Professor of Piano at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, a position he has held since 2006. He has also served as Professor of Piano at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, and at Erskine College, where he held the prestigious Harriet Pressly Smith Caldwell Professorship in Music. From 2018-2022, Dr. Manwarren served as a Visiting Professor of Piano at the School of Music, University of South Carolina. From 1998-2024, Dr. Manwarren served during the summers on the faculty at the prestigious Adamant Music School in Vermont, where he was the Artistic/Executive Director from 2021-2024.
Dr. Manwarren has established a notable reputation as a solo and collaborative performer. He has given recitals and masterclasses at numerous venues, including Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, universities throughout the U.S., numerous concert series, and music organizations throughout the US and abroad. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated on several occasions with the Rhodora Winds, the principal woodwind quintet of the Charlotte Symphony. He has also given art song recitals with soprano Kristen Wunderlich and tenor Jeffrey Price. Dr. Manwarren collaborates frequently with South-African pianist, Franklin Larey. They have given numerous recitals of the entire duo piano and piano four-hands works of Francis Poulenc. His recording, entitled Youthful Passion and Fantasy, featuring Schumann’s Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17 and Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5, was released on the Americus label in 2015. In 2023, he recorded the entire piano works of composer Leonard Mark Lewis, all works which were commissions by Dr. Manwarren.
Dr. Manwarren began his piano studies with Mary Lou Hindman Wade in El Paso and later studied with Claude Herndon (a pupil of Tobias Matthay). He earned his undergraduate degree (summa cum laude) from Texas Tech University as a student of William Westney. While there, he received the prestigious Eva Browning Piano Scholarship and was winner of the university concerto competition, performing with the Texas Tech University Symphony. He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, studying piano with Frank Weinstock and Elisabeth Pridonoff and organ with David Mulbury. In 1996, Dr. Manwarren was awarded a Teacher Enrichment Grant from the Music Teachers National Association for the purpose of studying at the French Piano Institute in Paris, where he had the opportunity to coach with Dominique Merlet, Pascal Devoyon, and Noel Lee. Dr. Manwarren has coached with Virginia Hutchings of Atlanta, Walter Hautzig of New York City, and John O’Conor of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He has also worked with Sheila Paige, coordinator of the Piano Wellness Seminar, where he has had the opportunity to study pianistic technique, ease, and movement at the piano that prevents injury for the pianist.
Dr. Manwarren has served two terms as president of the South Carolina Music Teachers Association. In 2018, he was named the SCMTA Outstanding Teacher of the Year in recognition of his teaching and service to SCMTA. In 2025 he was named as an MTNA Foundation Fellow by SCMTA and will be honored at the 2026 MTNA Conference in Chicago. His students have gone on to have professional careers as performers and teachers throughout the country and abroad.
