THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Music presents
Faculty Recital
Shannon Thomas, Violin
Stijn De Cock, Piano
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
7:30 p.m. | Longmire Recital
Sonata for Violin & Piano in G minor
PROGRAM
Joseph Boulogne
I. Allegro (1745–1799)
II. Rondeau gracioso
Nocturne Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)
Suite for Violin and Piano
William Grant Still
I. African Dancer (1895–1978)
II. Mother and Child
III. Gamin
INTERMISSION
Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108
Johannes Brahms
I. Allegro (1833–1897)
II. Adagio
III. Un poco presto e con sentimento
IV. Presto agitato
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All…
Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.
Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.
Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.
A Tennessee native, violinist Shannon Thomas has garnered a reputation for exciting, thoughtful performances as a chamber musician, soloist, and in recital throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent performing engagements have taken her to the Kennedy Center, Spoleto Festival USA, Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium, Bolivia’s Centro Sinfonico in La Paz, and the Banff Centre where she has collaborated with distinguished artists such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet, David Halen, Richard King, Wendy Chen, Anita Pontremoli, and Midori.
As a chamber musician, Thomas has performed at the Innsbrook Summer Music Festival, Garth Newel Music Center, Sarasota Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, ENCORE School for Strings, Aspen Music Festival, the International Clarinet Association National Conference (Belgium), Northwestern University, and Brancaleoni International Music Festival (Italy). She is violinist of the Benzaiten Trio and performs regularly with the Bryant Park Chamber Players in New York City, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, and IRIS Collective under the direction of Michael Stern. Thomas has recorded for Blue Griffin Records, most recently releasing a CD celebrating the music of Lera Auerbach, Ellen Zwilich, and Jennifer Higdon.
Interested in sharing her enthusiasm for the arts through teaching, Thomas is in demand as a pedagogue. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin at Florida State University and directs the Gabriel Del Orbe Violin Program in the Dominican Republic. In the summers, she teaches at Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival and Hilton Head Chamber Music Institute. Previously on the faculties of University of Southern Mississippi, the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory Division, and Interlochen Arts Camp, her students have been prizewinners and finalists at national competitions, including MTNA and the Sphinx Competition. She has also taught at the Kinhaven Music School, Stony Brook University Chamber Music Camp, and Innsbrook Institute Summer Music Academy and Festival, where she served as Education Director. Thomas has presented educational sessions and masterclasses at the National ASTA conference, Florida Music Educators Association annual conference, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Luby Violin Symposium. In addition, she has served as an adjudicator and clinician for the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival Association and to MTNA and regional All-State orchestral auditions. She is coartistic director of MusicBridges Tallahassee, a non-profit that provides opportunities for youth to succeed through the power of music and diversity.
Thomas earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was Paul Kantor’s teaching assistant. She received the Master of Music degree from Yale University and the Bachelor of Music degree from Vanderbilt University. She also pursued graduate work at Arizona State University, where she was the first student to be accepted into the Artist Diploma program. She studied chamber music with Peter Salaff, Merry Peckham, George Sopkin, Christopher von Baeyer, Laurie Smukler and members of the Juilliard, Blair, Tokyo, and Cavani String Quartets. Her principal teachers have included Paul Kantor, Cornelia Heard, Jonathan Swartz, Robert Lipsett, and Ani Kavafian.
For more information, visit shannonthomasviolin.com and follow her on Instagram: @shannonthomasviolin.
Hailed for his passionate and virtuosic piano playing by the East Hampton Star, internationally acclaimed pianist Stijn De Cock maintains an active musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teaching artist in the US and abroad. His playing has been described as “alternating between the stormy and sublime, while getting to the heart of the music” and was praised for its ability to create “a most compelling musical narrative “(Amalfi Festival concert review).
In recent years, De Cock’s concert seasons have included concerts on four continents, from the US to Europe, Asia, and Africa. In recent concert seasons, De Cock has appeared in Kenya, Macau, Taiwan, Canada, Italy, France, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Spain, in solo, chamber, and collaborative capacities. He has performed in prestigious music festivals around the world, a selection of which include the Amalfi Coast International Music and Arts Festival, PianoTexas, Pianofest in the Hamptons, the XIV NewSound Festival, the Interventions New Music Festival at the Great Gallery of the Toledo Museum of Art, the Prague International Piano Masterclasses, and the Gijón International Piano Festival. De Cock has also been a major prize winner in multiple competitions, including the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, the Ann Arbor Society for Musical Arts Young Artist Competition, the Poland International Music Festival Piano Competition and the Prix des Jeunes and Lions Club music competitions in Belgium.
As the founding director or the Brancaleoni International Music Festival, De Cock has created a summer festival that offers a unique, intensive, and integrated artistic learning environment to the aspiring young pianists, singers, and string players from around the world in the beautiful Marche region of Italy. Also a sought after teaching artist, De Cock has presented masterclasses and lecture-recitals in Naples, Amalfi, and Maiori, at the Amalfi Coast International Music and Arts Festival in Italy, the Charles University in Prague, the Pardubice Conservatory in the Czech Republic, Tangaza College and the Conservatoire de Kenya in Nairobi, Kenya, Wah Yan College and Lasalle College in Hong-Kong, China, and Tunghai University in Taiwan. De Cock has taught and held faculty positions at the State University of New York Fredonia, the University of Michigan, Schoolcraft College, Albion College, and the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. He currently serves on the piano faculty of Florida State University as Assistant Professor of Piano.
As a student, De Cock was admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels at the unusually young age of fifteen in the studio of Evgeny Moguilevsky. He was trained in the tradition of Russian pianism, as Moguilevky himself is a former student of Moscow Conservatory’s legendary teacher, Heinrich Neuhaus, whose formidable students included Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, and Radu Lupu. De Cock graduated from the Royal Conservatory with a Premier Prix, and holds a Master’s Degree and Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, which he pursued under tutelage of Logan Skelton. De Cock has also received guidance from artists such as Claude Frank, Robert McDonald, Yehoved Kaplinsky, Julian Martin, Matti Raekallio, Boris Slutsky, Malcolm Bilson, Martin Katz, Margot Garrett, and Marilyn Horne.
De Cock is an active member of the American Liszt Society, the College Music Society, and MTNA. His students have won prizes at state and international piano competitions, gained admission to competitive undergraduate and graduate college programs and participated in international music festivals. For a current schedule of events, visit stijndecockpiano.com, and for information on the Brancaleoni International Music Festival, visit brancaleonifestival. com.