Karen Thickstun, MTNA President from 2021–2023

By Richard Rejino

As MTNA celebrates its historic 150th anniversary, we're looking back through the eyes of our past presidents and other leaders, inviting them to reflect on the challenges they faced, the accomplishments they achieved, and their hopes for the future of the association and the profession. We begin the series with a profile of Karen Thickstun, who served as MTNA President from 2021–2023, interviewed and photographed by MTNA member Richard Rejino.

Karen Thickstun may be the perfect example of how life’s experiences are merely practice for what lies ahead. Careers rarely follow a straight line, and the path of twists and turns she experienced prepared her for the challenges and opportunities that defined her career.  Her journey is one of choices and circumstances, which at first seem mismatched, but that ultimately led her to opportunities that today feel as if they were inevitable.

I had the privilege of interviewing Karen in Chicago during the 2026 conference. We talked about her varied career and what MTNA has meant to her. Her story was, in a word, fascinating, and filled with insights, wisdom, and a passionate call to action.

Beginnings

Karen grew up in North Carolina and attended Duke University, double-majoring in piano performance and economics. After college, she worked as an economist in Washington, D.C. Later, she received an MBA and was recruited by a Fortune 500 company, a diesel manufacturer, in Indiana. Though diesel engines were as far removed from the world of music as you could get, the piano was always part of Karen’s life. From the time she was 12 years old, she held a church position, and she always had a piano wherever she lived. Music grounded her and was a constant in her life.

After years of working in the corporate world, she began to question what she wanted from the rest of her life, asking, “Where is my heart; what is my passion?” It was her mother, a piano teacher, who told Karen that Butler University in Indianapolis offered a master’s degree in piano pedagogy. This got Karen’s attention. “When I was an undergrad student,” she recalled, “piano pedagogy did not exist where I was. I didn’t even know anything about it.”

So, she enrolled in an evening course in piano pedagogy, and she credits her professor Steve Roberson’s enthusiasm for teaching for lighting a fire in her. After only one course, she quit her full-time job and decided to go all-in on a master’s degree in pedagogy. 

Karen quickly discovered that she excelled at teaching and loved her two years as a graduate student at Butler. After graduating, she started a home studio in rural Indiana while also working at Butler’s newly established Piano Academy.

Her years at the academy began a chain of important milestones in her career:  She honed her teaching skills, launched the Butler Piano Camps, and soon after, was asked to become an adjunct professor in piano pedagogy at Butler. In 2002, the university invited her to serve as the founding director of the Butler Community Arts School (BCAS), which she described as a “defining moment.”

The directorship at BCAS brought together the business skills she had developed at her corporate job and her training as a piano teacher into the ideal position. She thrived, and during the next 20 years, built the program from ground zero to serving 2,000 children annually.

“It was the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Karen said, “because the school served the students in a meaningful way by providing access to families who could not afford lessons. I also learned to write grants, which meant that we could afford scholarships for them to come to our classes and camps.”

The dean and Karen shared a vision that the school’s instructors were to be primarily college students.

“This was their learning lab to learn how to teach,” she said, “but also to learn how to be an artist-citizen and to interact with the community where you live. It was transformative for me and for them.”

Though she started teaching piano later in her life, it was Karen’s previous training in music and business that gave her the tools she needed to be a successful and creative entrepreneur for BCAS—and to give back to the teaching profession she loves.

MTNA: Service and Paying it Forward

At the suggestion of her professor and mentor Dr. Roberson, Karen joined MTNA soon after starting graduate school.

“One of the things I enjoyed most about graduate school were the pedagogical discussions we had between peers,” she told me. “I realized very quickly that I could keep that going through MTNA at the local, state, and national levels. With MTNA, I had opportunities to serve others through leadership and through research and writing. It has been a community where I know I can go for help with ANY teaching question and find answers and support. It became the place where I could get the teaching enrichments that I so enjoyed in my master’s program.”

When Karen became president of MTNA in 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic and all the uncertainty that came with it was at its height. Her approach to the challenges was born from a deeply held conviction that MTNA had to respond first to the needs of the teachers during such an unprecedented situation. As the country wrestled with divisive views on masks, vaccines, social distancing, and even social issues, everything from the national conference to private teaching moved online.

Karen is proud of how MTNA responded by providing a training packet for teachers to use Zoom. Also, because of the pandemic, there were many conversations with members that ushered in a heightened awareness of inclusion, access, and belonging for all types of teachers. Her term saw increased representation, expansion of online business resources, the launch of MTNA Business Digest, the re-invigoration of the MTNA member survey, and a task force for young professionals, to name a few.

Karen believes that MTNA’s resources are one of its greatest strengths. “More than any other organization I know, MTNA supports, nurtures, and challenges independent teachers, and has been doing so through major national events for 150 years,” she said. “I’m not sure if any organization can keep up with today’s rate of change, but when you remember how diverse our membership is in terms of types of teaching, I think MTNA has always been quick to respond. COVID is a great example.”

Why We Do What We Do

Though her service and accomplishments in MTNA are many and impressive, Karen has always prioritized her commitment to teaching and her students. As much as teachers can have a life-altering influence on their students, most will say that their students changed them in even more profound ways. 

I asked Karen if she could share just one story of a special student who left a lasting impact on her. She didn’t hesitate. “My students are the greatest source of inspiration and special moments,” she said, “especially those that have overcome challenges and persevered through trying times. The most impactful students aren’t those who achieved the most. It’s the ones who have traveled the furthest.”

“There was a grandmother who was an adult student at BCAS who thought it would be great for her grandchildren to have music lessons. She paid for their lessons because she knew the challenges this family was having. The mother was bi-polar, the father was domineering, and there were eight children in the family.

“When I first met them, the mother came to me with her oldest child at the time, a 5 year old, who I taught in my group piano class,” Karen said. “I got to watch what happened from the time she was a child until she graduated high school. She loved music, and as she grew up, she also had to help care for and homeschool her seven siblings. Her music progress was slow and steady, which I didn’t mind. It took her a long time to get her music skills together, but she did. She went on to college at Indiana University with a major in music education and is graduating soon.”

Karen is even more proud of the mother’s evolution. “It was an example of perseverance and resilience,” she said. “She found a way to leave her dysfunctional marriage, she got a handle on her mental health, and she went back to nursing school and finished her degree. Today, she works as a nurse, takes piano lessons herself, and continues to enroll her youngest children in music lessons. So, to me, this family has travelled the furthest and has inspired me. This is why I did the job at the university, why we provided access. This is why music is an important thing to have in our world because it was the path that saved that family.”

“This family and others,” she continued, “gave me deeper appreciation and recognition for the privilege that I was blessed with—to have music in my life from a very young age and continuing for the rest of my life. These families reminded me daily of what many of us take for granted. They deepened my commitment to the community arts school to find ways to provide access for all who want to experience music lessons.”

As a mentor, she made sure the teachers at BCAS also experienced the power of access to music lessons. Each of them now has their own success stories. Being a mentor was one of the most rewarding parts of Karen’s work at BCAS because it brought everything full circle. The support from Karen was also multiplied through MTNA and the Collegiate Chapter that she co-founded at Butler.

Call to Action

As we wrapped up our interview, I asked Karen what advice she would give to someone who was starting a career as an independent teacher. She had taken care to craft her response and read it to me as if she were speaking directly to a beginning teacher. I was surprised by how much her message moved me and how I knew it would move you, the reader. Her passion and concern were  palpable that afternoon,  in her closing words …

“It is tempting to believe that today’s chaotic world is the most trying time in history. Sorry, beginning teacher, but every generation has said that. My generation felt the uncertainty and fear of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, civil rights unrest, the feminist movement, etc.

“Hang in there! We have more in common than differences. Some things are universal and don’t change. The power of kindness and grace. The unifying power of music. The healing power of music. Lean into these truths. You are the vessel through which these messages can grow and amplify the best of what humanity can offer. The world needs you!

“I know starting a career is hard, and I’m reminded of a Martin Luther King quote: ‘Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.’ Start with a first step. Jobs and careers are evolving so fast. No one can see what is ahead in the next 10 or 20 years. So, develop transferable skills, do what you love. Expect (and embrace) zig zags. Even in my own career, at the time I finished undergrad, I could not have foreseen that I would be a director of a community arts school, or that I would be teaching pedagogy. But here I am, and I’m grateful for every detour and pit stop along the way.”

Karen is enormously grateful for the part MTNA has played in supporting her in her career and in its 150th year, she recognizes that anything that lasts that long implies stability, consistency, and staying the course to weather the storms. However, using her business sense, she added this: “But that’s not enough in today’s world. You cannot stay the course. In addition to educating, you must innovate, you must advocate for what you believe in. MTNA must lead the profession. We must transform the profession. We must be bold, because I believe we’ve barely scratched the surface of what is possible for creating spaces where music is valued, pervasive, impactful. We need it now more than ever.”

 Richard Rejino is a member of MTNA and a writer and photographer based in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of What Music Means to Me, and his writing and photography have been published in national and international publications.