Kristina Pelechová Henckel 

Kristina Pelechová Henckel is a Czech-American pianist and pedagogue. She studied at the Teplice Conservatory with Associate Professor Petr Slavík and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the studio of Professor Peter Toperczer. During her studies, she became a laureate of several major piano competitions, including the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Mariánské Lázně and the Bedřich Smetana Piano Competition in Hradec Králové. She also won First Prize at the Conservatory Competition, receiving a special award for the best interpretation of works by Antonín Dvořák.
In 1999, she moved to the United States, where she earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma. While completing her doctorate, she received additional honors, including First Prize in the Donna Turner-Smith Competition and the Graduate Concerto Competition (2012). Her dissertation, A Pianistic Analysis of Bedřich Smetana’s Piano Cycle “Dreams,” was nominated in 2016 for the University of Oklahoma Provost’s Award for Outstanding Dissertation.
As a performer, Dr. Henckel has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe and the United States. Her recordings have been broadcast on radio stations in both the Czech Republic and the U.S. Last year, she released her debut solo album featuring works by Bedřich Smetana, Vítězslav Novák, and Fryderyk Chopin. She is an official representative of Ritmüller pianos and a laureate of The American Prize (2022) in the solo piano category.
In chamber music, she has released several CDs, including recordings of piano trios by Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana with the Seattle-based Turnía Piano Trio. Together with Cuban-American pianist Amanda Virelles, she co-founded the piano duo 4HANDS, which has released three albums: Rhapsody in White and Blue (2021), Slava (2022), and Hispanic (2024). The duo received the Grand Prize and Artist of the Year award in the chamber music category at the International Youth Music Competition 2022, performed at The DiMenna Center
for Classical Music in New York, and appeared at Carnegie Hall in November 2023.
Dr. Kristina Pelechová Henckel currently serves on the music faculty at Sandhills Community College and Fayetteville State University in North Carolina (USA).

Teaching Profile
As a piano pedagogue, Dr. Henckel is highly regarded for her systematic and individualized approach to teaching. She is an active lecturer and adjudicator at piano competitions and contributes to professional pedagogy journals in the United States. She created an instructional video on Six Minuets by Maria Szymanowska for the Inspiring Artistry project, published in Piano Magazine.
Her students have achieved outstanding results in national and international competitions and regularly perform on prestigious stages, including Carnegie Hall. Their awards include prizes at the Carmel Klavier International Piano Competition, Piano League International Competition, National Federation of Music Clubs State Piano Competition, Oklahoma State MTA Piano Competition, and Midwest Division MTNA Piano Competition. Dr. Pelechová Henckel has received multiple honors for excellence in piano teaching.