A musician with widely ranging interests, Grace enjoys an active and varied career split between solo engagements, collaborative work, and teaching. Currently a staff pianist at Duquesne University’s Mary Pappert School of Music, she regularly collaborates with students and faculty on recitals, competitions, recording projects, and opera development. Recent collaborations in the Pittsburgh area include concerts with students and faculty at the Carnegie Mellon School of Music, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and Pittsburgh Opera’s 2019 new opera development (Co-Opera) project. Prior engagements include performances with the Pendulum New Music Series and performing as a member of the new-music-focused Meraki Trio. As a soloist, Ms. Burns has performed in a wide variety of concerts and venues, ranging everywhere from informal house concerts to Carnegie Hall.

Grace received her Master’s Degree from the University of Colorado – Boulder, where she studied with Dr. David Korevaar and was a graduate assistant for the collaborative piano department. Previously, she graduated Magna Cum Laude with “Distinction in Research and Creative Work” from Rice University with a degree in Piano Performance, where she studied under Jeanne Kierman Fischer. She has performed for a wide variety of master clinicians in solo and chamber music, including Richard Goode, John Perry, Paul Kantor, and Howard Karp, among others.

Grace has sustained a large piano studio for ten years and enjoys teaching students of all ages. In recent years she has undergone continuing education and certification in Suzuki piano (book 1) and Musikgarten.