Congratulations to Eastman PhD candidate Zekai Liu ’23E, ’25E (MM) for being a recipient of two prestigious awards in Music Theory. His paper, titled “Keyboard Distance: An Analytical Tool for Bridging Transformational Theory and Embodied Performance in Piano Music,” won Best Student Paper at the Texas Society for Music Theory’s annual conference, held in late February in Denton, Texas. The paper also received the 2026 Dorothy Payne Award, named in honor of alumna and legendary former Eastman professor Dorothy Payne ’56E, ’67E (MM), ’74E (DMA)—which is presented annually to the best student paper delivered at the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic conference.
Zekai received both a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and music theory and a Master of Music degree in piano performance from Eastman, where he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in music theory.