Zuponcic reaches milestones in teaching as she meets the challenges of the times

During the 2019-2020 academic year, piano professor Veda Zuponcic was inducted into the inaugural class of the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame, her name entered onto a wall in the Steinway & Sons factory in Astoria, Queens, NY. In September, she begins her 50th year teaching at Rowan University. What the world has experienced in the relatively short period of time between those two milestones has both changed and reinforced how Zuponcic approaches education.

"It was exciting," she said of earning this recognition, noting the real reward was being named among the others chosen. "To be included with that group is the honor."

Zuponcic was one of only 43 teachers from across the United States and Canada chosen, honoring a record of producing high achieving students at both the pre-college and college levels. This includes her students winning numerous prizes at national and international competitions over the years, and the scope of her private studio for younger students, inspired by a sabbatical in Moscow in 1992 that introduced her to methods she wanted to try here in New Jersey. She started with four students from Camden School of Musical Arts. She has gone on to teach hundreds of students outside of the university.

Many of these pre-college & music-bound students have come to Rowan to continue their studies with Zuponcic. She notes that every year for decades she’s had her own "transfer" students as well as "grand-students," those who have studied under her former students.

"We only get to be known if our students deliver," she stated.

Part of the foundation for this educational achievement began when she arrived at then-Glassboro State College in 1971, though the environment was a bit different from what it is today. For example, Wilson Hall and its facilities had not been completed yet. "When I first came to campus, we were in the basement of Bunce Hall," she recalled with a laugh.

Born in Minnesota, Zuponcic earned bachelors and masters degrees in Piano at Indiana University, winning the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto Competition along the way. As winner of a Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant, she made her formal European debut in 1971, followed by her American debut at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in 1973. She was also building a piano program in Glassboro, spurred by upgraded facilities with the opening of Wilson Hall and other advancements, key among them scholarship opportunities for international students from the former Soviet Union (many of whom now hold full-time faculty & adjunct positions at universities across the U.S.) and becoming an All-Steinway School in 2009.

Now nearly 50 years after her arrival on campus, the way in which teaching takes place has again changed. Zuponcic has been thoughtful, pragmatic, and proactive in facing the challenges of teaching piano students during the pandemic. Last summer, she researched international best practices being implemented by others in the music world for her role as Artistic Director of Minnesota’s Northern Lights Music Festival, preparing for its 17th season in July 2020. An in-person but different program was presented including the only opera production in the U.S. last year, which garnered international media attention. She noted that no cases of COVID-19 were reported following the festival's events. With this knowledge in hand, she returned to Rowan in September with a better understanding of the processes necessary for continuing with her brand of one-on-one teaching: physical distancing, masks, ventilation, time between sessions, and sanitizing. Being able to teach in person is important to Zuponcic, as is making it safe to do so.

She is also a fervent believer in the musical, educational, and real-life impacts that come from studying piano. She points to research showing that serious piano study boosts IQ points while she delights in the fact that she’s had plenty of students go on to be non-music majors at MIT, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Yale, NYU, Princeton, and Rochester Institute of Technology, among others.

"Piano study helps academically," she noted, even if you don’t become a professional pianist.