ATLANTA — For Dr. Taylor Flowers, collaborative piano is more than an accompanist’s art — it is a discipline built on listening, scholarship and the kind of deep musical partnership that can define a singer’s career. That conviction, shaped by an international performance profile, years of opera coaching and a sustained commitment to underrepresented repertoire, is what Dr. Flowers will bring to the Georgia State University School of Music when he joins the faculty in August 2026 as Lecturer in Collaborative Piano.
Dr. Flowers arrives at Georgia State following a four-year tenure at Hillsdale College, where he taught applied piano and chamber music, and a concurrent appointment as a vocal coach at the University of Michigan. His career is defined by an international performance profile across Europe and South America, a specialization in 20th-century vocal literature and contemporary operatic repertoire and a deep commitment to expanding the collaborative piano field’s engagement with underrepresented voices.
Dr. Flowers’s arrival also marks the beginning of a new chapter for the School of Music’s offerings: he will help launch a Master of Music in Collaborative Piano, set to welcome its first students in fall 2027. Director Dr. Julia Bullard called the appointment a key step in building the new program. “Dr. Flowers is an experienced collaborative pianist with a wide range of performance credits in chamber music, art song and opera,” she said. “We are excited for him to help us launch our new master’s degree in collaborative piano, and we look forward to hearing him in many performances on the GSU campus and the broader Atlanta music community.”
Central to Dr. Flowers’s career is his specialization in the repertoire of the African diaspora. He served six years as a collaborator for the George Shirley Vocal Competition in Ann Arbor, work that culminated in his selection as the recipient of the 2026 George Shirley Collaborative Pianist Award. He is eager to bring that work to Atlanta. “Coming from the University of Michigan, I have experience with African American art song that I would love to continue to grow and bring to the artistic community here,” he said.
His professional coaching appointments reflect the breadth of his operatic work. Dr. Flowers completed a second-year residency at the Taos Opera Institute and served as an Opera Coaching Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2023. He has also collaborated with Detroit Opera, coaching and performing for their professional outreach initiatives, and has performed extensively with the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble. Additional credits include the Austrian American Vocal Academy in Salzburg, the Cleveland Art Song Festival and SongFest.
As a scholar, Dr. Flowers brings an equally wide lens to his work. His research interests include the theological and coloristic structures of Olivier Messiaen — a subject he has presented at the Western University Graduate Symposium — the vocal music of Czech and eastern European composers and Jewish liturgical music, developed through a long-term tenure at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor. He is a recipient of the Mu Phi Epsilon Rosa Lobe Collaborative Piano Award and earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano from the University of Michigan under the mentorship of Martin Katz.
For Dr. Flowers and his wife, soprano Lucia Flowers, Atlanta’s artistic landscape was a significant draw. “Atlanta’s bustling music and arts hub is a unique component of the curriculum offered to GSU students, as well as a fantastic post-graduation employment avenue,” he said. “My wife and I are drawn to the artistic culture native to downtown Atlanta, which plays a huge role in molding and employing GSU students.” He also plans to continue growing his opera coaching network in the city and to expand the field’s reach within the Atlanta artistic community.
“I will encourage my students to define a purpose for their artistic expression, to develop technical excellence in their craft and to live their lives in harmony with the richly beautiful music they seek to create.”
Dr. Flowers joins the School of Music this fall and resides in Atlanta with his wife and their son.