Gabriel Merrill-Steskal is a multifaceted pianist and musician dedicated to performance, teaching, and scholarship. His recent musical activities are wide-ranging and varied, including commissioning and premiering new pieces for fortepiano by Michael Kropf and Chenghao Li, engraving and recording a new critical edition of Jospeha Auernhammer’s violin sonata on period instruments with Anna Okada, and appearing with the Ann Arbor Symphony as a soloist performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto. He has won awards in international competitions on both piano and fortepiano (including the Seattle International Piano Competition, Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, and SFZP International Fortepiano Competition) and recently was a fellow at the Gilmore piano festival and Pianofest in the Hamptons. He has also recorded for Blue Griffin Records as part of an upcoming album of new piano music by William Horne.
Gabriel holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan, where he studied piano with Logan Skelton and fortepiano with Matthew Bengtson. Before turning to music full-time, he completed his undergraduate degree with a double major in music and chemistry, graduating summa cum laude from Whitman College and studying piano with David Hyun-Su Kim. He has also studied fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson.
In addition to his performance activities as a soloist and chamber musician, Gabriel is an active teacher and scholar. He is Assistant Professor of Piano and Industry at New Mexico Highlands University, where he teaches piano, music history, music theory, and other courses. He is also an experienced fortepianist interested in 18th and 19th century performance practice, and was recently the Visiting Artistic Researcher at the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards, presenting original lecture-recitals on historical pianos throughout Spring 2025. His most recent research projects include studying prolongational aspects of folk-based pitch structures in Bartók’s music, and examining characteristics of embellished repeats in Mozart and Chopin. Aside from all things piano, he enjoys spending time outside running and rock climbing.