Bette Coulson

Bette Coulson is Lecturer and Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at Columbia College Chicago. She is also on the faculty of Sherwood Conservatory, in addition to serving on their five-year planning committee. Ms. Coulson is a former faculty member of Northeastern University where she instructed piano pedagogy and advanced piano, and also the faculty of the Chicago Conservatory College, teaching piano, pedagogy and introductory theory.

As a college student, she debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing the Aram Khachaturian Concerto. She was also a finalist in the L.M. Gottschalk contest in New Orleans and the Rockefeller American Music Contest in St. Louis. Her degrees are from the Chicago Conservatory College, Chicago with Harold Berlinger and the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago with Aletta Tenold (student of Rosina Lehvinne, New York). Post-graduate study of contemporary music was with William Browning.

Besides being a soloist, Ms. Coulson is part of the piano Lakeside Duo and the Piano a’ la Quartette. She has performed at the Harold Washington Library, the University of Illinois Champaign, Urbana; the Gold Ball Room, Congress Hotel, Chicago; First Night, Evanston; and a recent piano duo/solo performance for the Sherwood Conservatory Board of Trustees invitation-only fund raiser. Coulson was awarded the 2002 Hazel Bowsman Scholarship from Delta Omicron International Fraternity, for independent study of contemporary American piano music.

Ms. Coulson is a member of the College Music Society, and is a member and held office in Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity, the Musicians Club of Women (Chicago) and the Music Teachers National Association. She has a NCTM Professional Certification from the Music Teachers National Association, and has presented workshops and lectures on current teaching materials for various area teachers associations in Fox Lake, Naperville, Evanston, and Chicago.

Ms. Coulson also co-owns Coulsons Music Matters sheet music store with her husband. Besides administrative work, she organizes promotional music displays for pedagogy workshops at Concordia University.