It's early evening in Hargreaves Music Building, and piano professor Ray Kilburn is engaged in a conversation with one of his students about, of all things, the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe.
The student, it seems, is working on a project for one of her other classes and asked Kilburn for some direction.
"It's stimulating to me," Kilburn later said. "Students come in and they're talking about their own projects and they're seeking guidance or information or just to hash stuff out, and it helps me keep alive the knowledge I have or it raises more questions.
"Let's face it. The more you know, the more you realize you really don't know that much."
Kilburn, 40, joined the Ball State music faculty after leaving a tenured position at Peace College, an all-female institution in Raleigh, N.C. His duties include teaching piano lessons and conducting master's classes, and keeps up a busy schedule as a performer and music adjudicator.
"He's very enthusiastic about what he does," said music student Justin Pruitt, who takes lessons from Kilburn.
Pruitt describes Kilburn as an energetic teacher who, though highly skilled on his instrument, is primarily focused on the development of his students rather than showing off his own prowess.
Born in the Toronto, Ontario, area, Kilburn lived in Montreal as a child and maintains dual-citizenship in Canada and the United States.
Kilburn attended Mount Allison University, in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick, before transferring to McGill University in Montreal, where he received his bachelor of music degree. He went on to complete master's and doctoral degrees from Indiana University.
Though born to a musical family that extends several generations back, Kilburn felt no pressure as a youth to become a professional musician.
"Nobody pushed me into music, ever," Kilburn said. "I didn't have stage parents. Being musically educated was part of being in the family, but you weren't 'expected' to go into music. I decided for myself."
His first taste of success as a concert pianist came during his sophomore year in college, when he won his school's concerto competition. Soon to follow were a slew of other contest victories and national radio broadcasts.
Upon completing his doctoral degree, Kilburn took a teaching position at the University of South Carolina's Coastal branch (which has since become independent and renamed Coastal Carolina University).
"I lived in a beach house," Kilburn said of the experience. "That was my first job. I was right on the beach, living in a house on stilts."
Living in the Southeast suited Kilburn's pastimes of hiking and windsurfing. A competitive swimmer in his collegiate days, Kilburn still enjoys exercise as a stress-reliever. The physical activity, he said, helped him to achieve balance during the years when he practiced as many as eight to 10 hours per day on the piano.
"I think I would have been a neurotic basket-case if I didn't exercise," he said. "I'm still that way."
Because much of his life involves music, it comes as little surprise that it played a role in how he met his wife, Yoko Shimazaki-Kilburn. She is an instructor of voice at Ball State.
"I was blaring (the music of composer Johann) Strauss with my sunroof open, and I pulled into Starbucks, and she was sitting outside reading an opera score," he said.
The Kilburns' lesson studios in the music building are adjacent, though busy schedules of lessons and other work keeps them from seeing one another too often. But they do enjoy the close proximity, the Kilburns said.
"It's a treat," Yoko said. "I enjoy it."
Kilburn performs about 25 to 30 concerts a year, and has played throughout the United States, Canada and Japan. He has recently, however, been forced to deal with an obstacle in his concert preparation.
He has learned he suffers from Brown's syndrome, a condition which prevents one of his eyes from moving as far to one direction as the other. This prevents the eyes from focusing properly, and therefore makes reading sheet music quite difficult.
Kilburn says he has to rely on his ears to hear the correct notes more, and takes more time than he used to when rehearsing material for concerts. He is also implementing a modified music stand that brings the music closer to him.
Kilburn has released three albums to date of classical music: "Time Pieces," "Kilburn Plays Rachmaninoff" and "Kilburn Duo," which he recorded with his father, Michael, a cellist. The recordings are available through his Web site, http://members.home.net/raykilburn.
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