Alison Beck

Dr. Alison Beck serves as Associate Director of Music at First Methodist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana, where she directs choirs, leads instrumental ensembles, plays piano and organ, and serves as Artistic Director and Producer for the Emmett Hook Center theater ministry and Texas Street Arts Series.

Alison holds a DMA in Piano Performance and Church Music from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where she was a Roubideau Scholar and served as Adjunct Professor of Piano. Her teaching included undergraduate and graduate applied piano, collaborative piano, and pedagogy, as well as directing the Southwestern Piano Ensemble and founding the Southwestern Women’s Chorus. Alison holds additional degrees in Piano Performance from the University of North Texas (MM) and Centenary College of Louisiana (BM).

As a composer, she is the winner of the New Music for New York choral composition competition. Her work Passing Faces for SSATTBB a cappella choir was performed at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music by the Manhattan Chorale Ensemble. Her music has been performed by choirs and instrumentalists across the United States, with commissions from church and community ensembles. Alison has showcased her music in workshops around the nation, including the highly selective John Ness Beck Composer Workshop, where she worked closely with leading choral composers in the industry. December Carols, the sisters’ debut album of Alison’s sacred Christmas arrangements with a classical twist, was released on the Bolo Classique label and featured on radio stations in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. 

As a sought-after chamber musician and recording artist in New York City from 2014-2020, Alison has performed in concert venues throughout the city, including in Carnegie Hall. Her chamber music collaborations include members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the NYC Ballet Orchestra. Also in New York City, Alison was a collaborative pianist in the violin studio of Issac Malkin at the Manhattan School of Music, played for various professional and community choirs, and was a pianist for services and concerts at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. 

Alison often presents lectures and lecture-recitals for churches and academic organizations on the church’s relationship with the arts, including a recent guest lecture-recital at Wheaton College for the Society of Christian Scholarship in Music on the use of contemporary compositional techniques in instrumental hymn arranging.