Title: Retired Associate Professor of Music
Company: Millikin University
Location: Decatur, Illinois, United States
William Ronald YaDeau, Retired Associate Professor of Music at Millikin University, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for dedication, achievements, and leadership in music instruction.
Mr. YaDeau is a retired associate professor of music and the former Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at Millikin University. Mr. YaDeau dedicated much of his career to teaching piano to students of all levels, including music theory, counterpoint, and harmonic analysis, and spent many years leading classes for first- and second-year music theory students at Millikin University as often as five days a week. In addition to his work with students, Mr. YaDeau served extensively in administrative roles, including sitting on the University’s Councils on Student and Academic Standards, Curriculum, and Faculty as well as contributing to the curriculum search team. He joined the faculty at Millikin University in 1978 and continued to teach for the next 35 years, stepping down in 2013 to focus on his career as a recitalist, researcher, and private instructor.
Prior to beginning his career at Millikin University, Mr. YaDeau taught piano at Eastern Oregon State College from 1972 until 1976. He holds a Bachelor of Music from Baldwin Wallace College and continued his studies at the University of Illinois, completing a Master of Music in 1969 and a Doctor of Music in 1980. Throughout his career, Mr. YaDeau has pursued additional advanced piano study under respected teachers and performers including Dean Sanders, Howard Karp, and Marian Filar, and was made a Fellow of the University of the Arts and Thomas Jefferson University in 1990. Mr. YaDeau has performed and spoken at institutions around the world, including participation in more than 20 Millikin University faculty recitals, a 1997 performance and lecture tour through Belarus and Slovakia, and a 2002 invitation to address the Belarus Academy of Music during the school’s 70th-anniversary celebrations.
Mr. YaDeau is extensively published, with papers and articles appearing in “The American Music Teacher” and “The Arts: A Basic Component of General Education,” 1981, an official publication of the Illinois State Board of Education. He is currently awaiting the publication of a definitive edition of his recordings of 24 piano preludes written by Belarusian composer Petr Petrovich Podkorytov, the culmination of years of study and a project that Mr. YaDeau considers to be among the most important works of his career. He spent 47 years as a member of the Music Teachers National Association, sitting on the organization’s National Board of Directors and being elected a Fellow in 2003. Mr. YaDeau is the former President of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association and remains active in the College Music Society and the Missouri State Lutheran Congregation.
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