Dr. Kelley Tracz, Assistant Professor of Oboe at Concordia College, is very active as both a performer and educator in Minnesota and beyond. Dr. Tracz has performed with numerous orchestras across the country, including multiple appearances with the New World Symphony, Brevard Music Center Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Ohio Light Opera Orchestra, Greensboro Symphony, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, Quad City Symphony, Temple Symphony Orchestra, Central Texas Philharmonic, Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, Brazos Valley Symphony, Topeka Ballet Orchestra, and more. She has received fellowships to Hidden Valley Music Festival, Brevard Music Festival, Bay View Music Festival, and the Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy. Dr. Tracz has been a featured soloist with the UNC Greensboro University Band, Austin Symphonic Band, Kansas State University Wind Ensemble, Packard Wind Band, and is also a past winner of the Midwest Double Reed Society Young Artist Competition.
As a passionate and dedicated educator, Dr. Tracz has given masterclasses and served as a clinician to young oboists and fellow music educators throughout the United States. Students of hers have advanced to Region, Area, and All-State ensembles in Texas, and have also been accepted into various schools of music across the country, including The Eastman School of Music, UT Austin, UMKC Conservatory, and Southern Methodist University. Dr. Tracz has served as a faculty artist for the national double reed camp, Bocal Majority, and was the premier instructor for the 2017 camp in Austin, Texas. She was the oboe instructor at Camp Bernstein of Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, for three consecutive seasons and has served as the oboe instructor for the Kansas State University Music Camp for seven seasons.
Dr. Tracz received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Oboe Performance and Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Ethnomusicology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During her time at UNCG, she studied with Ashley Barret and served as the Teaching Assistant for the Oboe Studio. She also served as a Teaching Assistant for the Ethnomusicology Department. Dr. Tracz holds her Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, where she was a Berneking Fellow, serving as rotating principal oboist of many of the top ensembles in the School of Music, and was a member of the school’s graduate woodwind quintet. Here she studied with former Principal Oboe of the Minnesota Orchestra, John Snow. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree at Kansas State University, studying with Nora Lewis. She has also studied extensively with Andrew Parker of UT Austin.