Lesley Sisterhen McAllister

Dr. Lesley Sisterhen McAllister serves as professor of piano, division director of keyboard studies, and director of piano pedagogy in the School of Music at Baylor University. In addition, she directs the Piano Laboratory Program for children in the community. Since 2022, she has served as director of the new Health and Wellness Initiative in the School of Music. Her research interests include imagery, mind-body relaxation techniques for performance anxiety, and mental rehearsal for musicians.

Dr. McAllister holds degrees from the University of Houston (BM ’99), Florida State University (MM ’01), and the University of Oklahoma (DMA ’05). An active clinician, Dr. McAllister has presented at such national conferences as the Music Teachers National Association, the Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy (GP3) Forum, and the College Music Society, as well as at the International Society of Music Educators conference and the Performing Arts Medicine Association International Symposium.

Dr. McAllister is the author of The Balanced Musician: Integrating Mind and Body for Peak Performance (2012) and Yoga in the Music Studio (2020). Published several times in American Music Teacher, she was awarded the 2010 “Article of the Year” award by the Music Teachers National Association. Her scholarly writing also has been published in Clavier Companion, Piano Pedagogy Forum, and the MTNA E-Journal. She has collaborated with the Baylor Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory to investigate music listening for chronic pain, and she was co-author of a study on the use of an app to prevent musician injuries which was published in Frontiers in Psychology. She won the faculty award for Research among Tenured Professors from Baylor in 2019 and the Centennial Professor Award in 2021. She also was honored with the Collegiate Teacher of the Year Award from the Texas Music Teachers Association in 2022. She is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Waco.