Lesley McAllister, DMA

Lesley McAllister, D.M.A., is Professor of Piano, Director of Piano Pedagogy, and Director of Keyboard Studies at Baylor University. In addition to teaching piano pedagogy, she also teaches courses on performer wellness and directs the Piano Laboratory Program for children in the community. Dr. McAllister holds degrees in performance from the University of Houston and Florida State University, studying with Nancy Weems and Leonard Mastrogiacomo, as well as a DMA in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, where she studied with Jane Magrath. Her research interests include imagery, mind-body relaxation techniques for performance anxiety, mental rehearsal, and yoga for musicians. 

In 2019, she was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award in Research for Tenured Professors at Baylor University; she also received a Centennial Professor Award in 2021 and was a 2023-24 Baylor Teaching Fellow. She began directing the Baylor School of Music Health and Wellness Initiative in fall 2022, which includes guest presenters, peer mentoring for music students, and interdisciplinary outreach with other departments on campus.

Dr. McAllister has presented at such national conferences as the Music Teachers National Association, National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy (GP3) Forum, and College Music Society, as well as international conferences of the Performing Arts Medicine Association symposium and International Society of Music Educators. She has been published in Piano Magazine, Piano Pedagogy Forum, and the MTNA E-Journal; has served as co-investigator with the Mind Body Medicine Institute at Baylor; and has co-authored an article in Frontiers in Psychology. Published several times in American Music Teacher, she was twice awarded the “Article of the Year" award by the Music Teachers National Association: in 2012 for “Should Music Be Fun?” and in 2023 for “The Language of Awareness: How Breath Work and Cueing Impact the Music Lesson.”

Previously the inaugural chair of the editorial board for the MTNA E-Journal, Dr. McAllister currently serves as the Wellness Column Editor for Piano Magazine. A certified RYT-200 yoga instructor, she is author of two books on musician wellness: The Balanced Musician: Integrating Mind and Body for Peak Performance and Yoga in the Music Studio, which was published by Oxford Press in 2020. Beginning in June 2024, she is serving a two-year term as President-Elect of the Texas Music Teachers Association (TMTA), which honored her with the Collegiate Teacher of the Year Award in 2022. She also received the Outstanding Service Award from the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy in 2023. In June 2023, Dr. McAllister began a three-year term as Faculty Regent. She currently serves as the Faculty-in-Residence at the all-female Collins Hall, where she lives with her husband Scott and two children, Cooper and Camden.