Eduardo Escamilla 
Eduardo Escamilla/THE RIDER
Brendan Kinsella, a professor of piano at UTRGV, received the 2025 Collegiate Teaching Achievement by the Texas Music Teachers Association, which is awarded for outstanding success in teaching at the collegiate level.
Kinsella’s win, awarded in June, marks the first time in the organization’s history that an educator from South Texas has received the award.
The mission of the TMTA is to advance the value of music study and music making in society and to support the professionalism of music teachers, according to its website.
The prestigious award recognizes Kinsella’s sustained excellence in teaching, professional development and service, including community benefit concerts for cancer fundraisers, hunger relief, homelessness and myriad other causes that have helped people across South Texas, according to the professor.
In an interview with The Rider, he recalled how he was judging a competition at the TMTA conference in Houston, when a colleague texted him the news of his award. He said he felt disbelief and immediate joy thereafter.
“I was just totally shocked,” Kinsella said. “Once the realization set in, I thought it was just an enormous validation of everything that I’ve been trying to do here at UTRGV in the [Rio Grande] Valley for so long, which is just to really elevate the level of piano-music education and piano playing in general.”
Kinsella’s teaching philosophy centers on transforming even “total beginners to piano” into artists.
His students have gone on to graduate schools of their choice, found full-time jobs as music educators or are pursuing doctoral degrees.
He said his core teaching principle is to “always find a way to improve yourself, either as a person or as an artist.”
Kinsella’s professional development, a key component of the TMTA award, involves his busy concert schedule.
“In addition to teaching here at UTRGV, on average, I play about 15 to 20 recitals per year all over the nation and internationally,” he said.
Since receiving the recognition, Kinsella said he has seen an increase in requests for master’s classes, adjudication and concerts, a testament to the awards prestige.
Beyond his classroom and performance duties, the professor is deeply involved in service.
He provides free lessons and judges competitions for the Magic Valley Music Teachers Association, a local subsidiary of the TMTA.
Kinsella said he champions the vibrant RGV music scene and said he feels fortunate about the community’s enthusiasm for live music. He added he believes audiences here are very appreciative and fill up the seats at recitals.
The professor also innovated his piano pedagogy class by shifting the focus from just teaching how to instruct to teaching how to serve.
A major class project is a humanitarian outreach concert, where students select a cause they are passionate about—such as food security, playing in nursing homes or chamber music outreach in schools—to apply music in a service-learning context.
“It’s just putting people in the community and showing them that they can really make a difference through music,” Kinsella said.
He is currently juggling the challenge of learning roughly five hours of new music, with upcoming engagements including chamber-music recitals, a two-piano concert and playing Frédéric Chopin’s again in January.
For aspiring young music educators, Kinsella offered a single piece of career advice, “Get your hands dirty,” emphasizing the importance of constant effort and growth.
“Usually the thing that is going through my brain right before I walk out is, ‘Why do I keep putting myself through this?’” the professor said, reflecting on the stress of performing.
However, he said he finds the reward in the performance itself.
“You put in all that work and, then, you get to have a performance,” Kinsella said. “Some people see it as a test, but I, I’ve always seen it as a reward.”
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