From 1972 Veda Zuponcic was Professor of Piano at Rowan University, where she built a reputation as a pragmatic and successful pedagogue of students of all ages.

Born in Aurora, Minnesota, she studied at Indiana University, Bloomington with the great pedagogue and pianist, Sidney Foster. While at Indiana she completed both B.M and M.M. degrees in Piano Performance, and distinguished herself by winning the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto Competition, and the Performers Certificate. Further studies were with Ilona Kabos in New York and London, and with Abbey Simon and Seymour Bernstein.

A recipient of a Martha Baird Rockefeller grant, Miss Zuponcic made her formal European debut in 1971. Critics in London, Vienna, Amsterdam and Berlin noted her powerful and fluent technique, the intelligence that informed her performances of music as diverse as Elliott Carter and Haydn, and her natural affinity for Romantic composers. As a prizewinner in the Alfredo Casella Competition, Naples, Zuponcic toured Italy under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of State. Her American debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1973 was followed by recital and orchestral performances throughout the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington D.C., Detroit, Atlanta and Minneapolis.

She was a sought-after performer in the concert halls of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, having played more than 100 concerts and recitals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Tbilisi, Arkhangelsk, Tashkent, Kyiv, Chișinău and Kharkiv, among others.

Her extensive touring on four continents included a 1998 tour of Japan. Veda Zuponcic’s orchestral appearances included the Russian State Symphonic Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Zagreb and Seville Orchestras, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, and the Tbilisi Symphony. She appeared as soloist on American tours with the Moldovan Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Other appearances included the Leningrad Chamber Orchestra, the Krasnodar Symphony, the Utica, NY Symphony, the Kharkiv (Ukraine) Symphony, the South Jersey Symphony, Central Jersey Symphony, Hoboken Chamber Orchestra, the Moldovan State Symphony, and the Tashkent Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Zuponcic was in frequent demand as a clinician, and presented workshops and masterclasses throughout the world, including the Barcelona Liceu, the Moscow State Conservatory, the Tashkent Conservatory, Temple University, the University of Wisconsin, Northern Illinois University, Croatian National Conservatory, Kharkiv Institute of Arts and Shizuoko Musical College. In 1992 she was an Exchange Professor at the Moscow State Conservatory where she taught a full class of students and gave a series of lectures on American piano music. She lectured on many topics of piano pedagogy for MTNA state organizations, including the Texas, Minnesota and New Jersey State Conventions.

Her former students have been major prizewinners in the Philadelphia Orchestra Competition; San Angelo, TX Competition; the Bartok Kabalevsky Competition, the Washington D.C. International competition, the Stravinsky Competition, ARTS Competition, Kingsville, TX Competition; Josef Hofmann Competition; and MTNA Collegiate, Senior and Junior High School Competitions. Professor Zuponcic was heard frequently in concert at Rowan University and recorded two solo CDs for the Melodiya Label, The Romantic Piano, and Americans from Moscow: Works by Carter, Dello Joio, Fine, Copland and Gershwin.

Veda Zuponcic was the Founding Artistic Director of the Northern Lights Music Festival in Aurora, Minnesota.