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Mindy Sampson earned both Bachelor and Master degrees in Piano from the University of New Mexico and has been a professional accompanist and popular solo pianist since 1977. Her broad range of venues spans music theater, dinner music, church, classical recitals, and piano bar. Styles include classical, Broadway, pop/jazz/country standards, Top 40 pop and country, ragtime, contemporary Christian, and New Age. She has performed nearly five dozen theater productions, mostly with Albuquerque Civic Light Opera, Musical Theatre Southwest, The Albuquerque Little Theatre, the Adobe Theatre, and New Mexico Young Actors, but also with many local high schools, as rehearsal accompanist, pit keyboards, and music director. Sampson has also toured with baritone Carlos Serrano and played countless concerts, recitals, and appearances at local, national, and international hotels, restaurants, convention centers, and celebrity parties (for Wayne Newton, Renaldo Bellini, Sid Caesar, and Bill Daily, among others).
Sampson's first music instruction was on marimba, learned in Germany from age 5 to 7. Upon returning to the USA, she transferred her music to piano, playing sans instruction but reading music voraciously. She took up the clarinet at school in the third grade, continuing on it through high school and college studying Hugh Stuart and Floyd Williams. Sampson performed with Willy Sucre & Friends on November 29, 2009. |
She currently accompanies the Westside Chorale under the direction of John Clark, accompanies Jacqueline Zander-Wall's vocal students at UNM in addition to being the pianist for 
Concurrent enrollment in high school and UNM brought her first piano lessons while majoring in clarinet and within two years of study she was in high demand as an accompanist for vocalists, instrumentalists, and musical theater. Sampson earned her two degrees studying piano with Rita Angel. Having also studied with Susan Patrick, Sampson's harpsichord credits include Vivaldi's Concerto in D with guitar quartet Los Romeros, Bach's Violin Concerto #2 in E with the New Life Symphony, a full production of Cosi Fan Tutte with the UNM Opera Studio, and a full production of Handel's