Board of Directors

As a collaborative pianist, Joel Clifft has had the pleasure of performing with many  world-class musicians, including Midori (violin) Ma Xiao Hui (erhu) and Ken Grant (clarinet). He has extensive international performance experience, touring throughout Germany, Switzerland, Austria, England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Brazil,  Korea, China and Singapore. In addition, he has performed by invitation at the United  Nations headquarters in New York, both as a collaborative pianist and as a soloist. He has  performed on many prestigious stages, including Disney Hall, Beijing Central  Conservatory, and The Hollywood Bowl.

Dr. Clifft earned his doctoral degree from the University of Southern California while  studying with Dr. Alan Smith and Bernadene Blaha. He graduated Pi Kappa Lambda and  was chosen as the “Most Outstanding Graduate” at both the Master’s and Doctoral levels.  He attended USC on a full scholarship and in addition, was a recipient of the Gwendolyn  Koldofsky scholarship.

Dr. Clifft is honored to serve as Director of Keyboard Studies at Azusa Pacific  University, where he teaches piano, music theory, accompanying and ear training  courses. A highly respected pedagogue, he frequently serves as a judge for competitions,  including MTAC, MTNA, Classical Masters Music Festival, Montecito, regional, state,  and international competitions.

In addition to his experience in the classical genre, Dr. Clifft is at home in the widest  variety of musical settings, including musical theater, ballet, studio recording, sacred  music, jazz and popular music. He also enjoys working as a commercial vocalist,  performing for clients such as Universal Pictures, The Paramount Group, and  Dreamworks. Dr. Clifft also composes and performs for Guitar Center’s keyboard line,  writing and recording original music for the last three generations of Williams keyboards.

In 2010, Dr. Clifft created Music Theory Pro, an iPhone app for music education. MTP teaches music theory and ear training using cutting-edge mobile technology. To date, the  app has received over 160,000 downloads from all over the world.