Risa Okina

Education

• Baccalaureate degree, Toho Gakuen School of Music
• MM, piano performance, Indiana University
• MM, music theory, Temple University
• PhD, music theory, Temple University

Dr. Risa Okina is a sought-after collaborative pianist and music theorist in the Philadelphia area who regularly performs with students at Temple University, Villanova University, Rowan University and West Chester University. She is also a répétiteur of the Philadelphia-based opera company ENAensemble.

Before moving to Philadelphia, Okina was a member of the Toradze Piano Studio, where she studied with the world-renowned pianist Alexander Toradze. She performed regularly at the Toradze Studio Recital series during her master’s program.

Okina is a recent graduate from Temple University, where she received her PhD in music theory. She teaches both written and aural music theory at Temple University. Her dissertation “Brahms and The Uncanny” explores the musical uncanny in the piano chamber music of Johannes Brahms, utilizing the notion of the uncanny from the perspective of the German philosophers Ernest Jentsch and Sigmund Freud. Her primary argument is that the musical uncanny acts as a hermeneutic window to reach a deeper musical meaning.

Okina has presented at numerous conferences both nationally and internationally, including the International Brahms conference in Irvine, CA (2019), Music Theory Midwest Annual Conference (2020), and the Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting (2020).

She holds a MM in music theory at Temple University, a MM in piano performance at Indiana University South Bend, and a baccalaureate degree from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Japan.

Currently, she is an adjunct assistant professor of music theory at Temple University, a collaborative pianist for the Villanova Singers at Villanova University and Main Line Singers in Wayne, PA, and an organist at Trinity Reformed Church UCC in Collegeville, PA.

Follow Okina on Instagram (@risao0907) where she shares her musical experiences as a pianist, professor and music theorist, as well as her love of food/cooking and two bunnies, Elsa and Oliver.