Elizabeth Newkirk is an American classical pianist and writer. She specializes in music of the early 20th century, and her scholarship explores the foundations of culture, convention, and archetypes. As a passionate humanist, her curations and performances seek to put the humanities into practice, often by partnering narrative and music. 

Newkirk has spent the past few years focused on American culture and the interwar period. During this time, she made her solo debut with the release of her album the Americanist, featuring orchestral works by Maurice Ravel, George Gershwin, and William Grant Still for solo piano. Partnering with the album is the essay of the same title where she built an American cultural myth atop the philosophies of the transcendentalist and New Negro movements. Her article, “American Accent,” was featured in International Piano, along with the album’s partnering essay, “the Americanist” finding publication in Art & Culture International. In addition to presenting the Americanist, she has broadened the program to include a larger discussion of modernity in her latest project, The Archetype of Modern Man, a four-part multi-disciplinary series that has explored four key tropes significant of the modern human condition: loneliness, self-reliance, Americanism, and nihilism. 

As a prominent chamber musician, she was the artistic director and co-founder of the violin and piano duo, Bow & Hammer. Striving to push the boundaries of the traditional concert, their curations included: IndustryNight (a house concert that featured a local business), Élevé (a posh series with multi-disciplinary performance), and the Coursed Concert (a collaboration with fine dining) that was piloted at the Banff Centre for the Creative Arts. She has performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the series “Once Upon a Symphony,” and she was a pianist in the Chicago premiere of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians at Depaul University.

Educated in Chicago, Newkirk completed her Master’s degree under Bartok aficionado Ludmila Lazar at Roosevelt University. Under the guidance of opera coach Scott Gilmore and soprano Judith Haddon, she was the rehearsal pianist for the productions of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and premiered new opera works in CCPA’s OperaFest. She trained with long-time keyboardist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mary Sauer, as an associate pianist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra. Additionally, she studied jazz with Dennis Luxion while working primarily with pianist/composer Sebastian Huydts at Columbia College Chicago. 

Newkirk is on faculty at the University of Houston where she teaches in the Interdisciplinary Arts and at Houston Community College where she teaches in the Humanities.