Rate My Professor Karin Schaupp

Karin Schaupp serves as Senior Lecturer and Head of Classical Guitar at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. She began studying guitar at age five under her mother, Isolde Schaupp, and gave her first public performance at age six. Schaupp completed tertiary music studies at The University of Queensland, earning First Class Honours and the University Gold Medal for her Honours Thesis in Musical Performance (1993) on the literature of stage fright. Her Master's Thesis in Musical Performance (1997) involved collaboration with a sports psychologist to develop a program combining cognitive techniques, relaxation, and imagery for musical performers, which was empirically tested at the university with significant success. This work stems from her personal experiences as a concert guitarist and has resulted in lectures on stage craft and performance anxiety at seminars, festivals, and educational institutions worldwide.

An internationally acclaimed classical guitarist, Schaupp performs as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician across Australia, Europe, Asia, the US, Mexico, and Canada. She won prizes at international competitions in Lagonegro, Italy, and Madrid, Spain, including the special prize for Best Interpretation of Spanish Music. Her discography includes solo albums Soliloquy (Warner Music, 1997), Leyenda (Warner, 1998, ARIA nominated), Evocation (Warner, 2000), Dreams (ABC Classics, 2004), Lotte’s Gift (ABC Classics, 2007), and Cradle Songs (ABC Classics, 2010); chamber music such as Fandango with the Flinders Quartet (ABC Classics, 2011, ARIA nominated), Songs of the Southern Skies with Katie Noonan (KIN, 2012, double ARIA nominated), and Songs of the Latin Skies (KIN, 2017, ARIA for Best World Music Album); and orchestral recordings including Phillip Bracanin’s Guitar Concerto (Queensland Symphony Orchestra, 1995), Ross Edwards’ Concerto for Guitar and Strings (Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, 2004), Peter Sculthorpe’s Nourlangie (Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, 2005), and Mosaic: Australian Guitar Concertos (ABC Classics, 2014). Awards include the Music Council of Australia Freedman Fellowship (2003) and Australia Council for the Arts Music Fellowship (2014-2015). Schaupp trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Art and starred in 150 performances of David Williamson’s Lotte’s Gift, premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2009). Her research outputs feature articles on The Immersive Guitar Project (2020, 2021). She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students at Griffith University.