Richard Fountain serves as Dean and Professor of Piano in the School of Creative Arts at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, TX, where he provides academic and strategic leadership in the areas of music, art, graphic design, media arts, and communications. Fountain teaches ethics and entrepreneurship, piano, and piano pedagogy in both traditional and online formats. As a performer he has enjoyed a varied career as soloist, orchestral pianist, collaborator, and chamber musician.
Fountain is one of very few pianists to perform the complete cycle of Franz Liszt’s monumental transcriptions of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. His solo and concerto repertoire highlights American music from all eras, and he is also devoted to the poetic and religious music of Liszt.
Fountain holds the positions of Principal Keyboard with Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra and the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra. His major teachers and mentors include David Gerard, Leon Harshenin, Paul Barnes, Malcolm Bilson, and Luiz de Moura Castro. Fountain holds a BM from Taylor University, MM and DMA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and an MBA from Wayland Baptist University.
Fountain has received numerous awards for professional activities, teaching, and service at local, regional, and national levels. He received the Early Achievers Award from the Nebraska Alumni Association in 2017, was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame in 2021, and received the Golden Baton Award from Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra in 2022. Fountain served as President of the Texas Music Teachers Association from 2022-2024, was named the 2024 “Teacher of the Year” by the Texas Music Teachers Association, and was honored as the 2024 MTNA Foundation Fellow for the state of Texas. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Liszt Society in 2025.
Fountain is co-founder and faculty member of the Excelsior Piano Academy, a biannual summer festival in Sondershausen, Germany. He serves regularly on the jury of the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, and performs regularly as a member of the Bergonzi Trio, with John Gilbert, violin and George Work, cello.
Fountain is an enthusiastic traveler, having traveled to forty-six of the fifty United States and fifteen other countries. He particularly loves road trips, and possesses a strangely comprehensive knowledge of the U.S. Interstate Highway system.
