Biography
Dr. Anja Arko, a Slovenian-born pianist, educator, and collaborative artist, serves on the piano faculty at Ohio University, where she teaches piano, piano literature, collaborative piano, and chamber music. Her work explores the intersections of classical music, contemporary repertoire, and cultural engagement, and she performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician, with a repertoire spanning standard works for solo piano to contemporary chamber music and interdisciplinary projects.
Anja is a core member of Catchfire Collective, a contemporary chamber ensemble recently named the 2025 Ensemble-in-Residence for Music for a Great Space. She also collaborates with Paradox Opera, a nonprofit that commissions socially conscious new works, and the Because the Oceans project, a chamber group focused on ocean conservation and outreach. In recent seasons, Anja has maintained a vibrant and multifaceted performance calendar, appearing regularly with Catchfire Collective — including the "Iridescent" program at Ambleside Gallery and a collaborative concert with Hypercube at Inside Piano Showroom in Greensboro. In April 2024, Anja held an artist residency in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she and her husband, visual artist Micah Daw, presented "Music and Environment," a lecture-recital and gallery talk reflecting a shared conceptual approach to ecological thought, expressed through the distinct but parallel languages of music and visual art. In 2022, she toured the south of France with Because the Oceans, performing in Marseille, Monaco, and other cities as part of an outreach and conservation initiative supported by the U.S. Consulate. She has also been featured on several notable premieres and recordings, including Hillary Purrington's Tourmaline, Robert Chumbley's opera The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Alejandro Rutty's Because the Oceans, Calling for Jane by Rachel Dean and Erin Reifler, and most recently, Diana Syrse's Rojo en Azul (U.S. premiere).
Anja holds a Doctorate in Piano Performance and a Post-Master's Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), along with degrees from the University of Florida and the University of Ljubljana. She also studied at the Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Szymanowskiego in Katowice, Poland. Previous appointments include the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) and High Point University, where she remained deeply engaged as a mentor and educator in the music community.