Education
B.M., University of Texas at Austin
Biography
Carol Vokes is an adjunct professor of piano at St. Mary’s University, a lifelong pianist, and a native San Antonian. She began playing the piano for chapel in elementary school at seven years of age and has performed recitals throughout the state of Texas from the age of eight. She has been featured as a soloist with the San Antonio Symphony, and was the winner of the Joske Concerto Competition.
Professor Vokes studied Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy at Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin. She also studied under the tutelage of world-renowned pianist Lili Kraus. While she particularly enjoys performing the works of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, her true passion is working toward a more peaceful world by cultivating a love of music in budding and established pianists alike. In addition to maintaining her own private piano studio for 52 years, she taught piano at Edgewood Fine Arts Academy.
Professor Vokes served as music director and organist at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in San Antonio for 22 years, planning and arranging music for English, Spanish and bilingual Masses. Presently, she serves as organist and choir director at St. Henry’s Catholic Church in San Antonio.
Professor Vokes’ relationship with the St. Mary’s University music department began in 1967, when she performed a recital with her late husband Emmett Vokes, a professor of piano for more than fifty years. Their recital featured works for two pianos. She has been an adjunct faculty member at St. Mary’s since 2004, teaching private piano and class piano, as well as accompanying choirs, vocalists and instrumentalists.
In her free time, Professor Vokes spends time with her eight children, eleven grandchildren, and two dogs, Dulce and Canela. Every Thanksgiving, she coordinates a family piano performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals for Four Hands, complete with poetry reading.