Jan Deats began to study piano at the age of eight. At fifteen she was given a scholarship at the Oberlin Conservatory. Following study at Oberlin, she went to Southern Methodist University where she studied piano with Gyorgy Sandor, a student of Bela Bartok, and with Alexander Uninsky. At Southern Methodist University she received her Bachelor of Music degree with honors, and her Master of Music degree with highest honors.
Jan has been teaching piano since the age of fifteen. Part of her musical career was spent in Asia where she served as head of the Department of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines. While there she co-edited with Eunice Poethig three song books (Everybody, I Love YOU, I Wonder as I Wander, and Let's Sing Christmas), she wrote Preludes, Postludes and Offertories (for organ) and she co-edited with Janice Johnson My First Organ Book. Jan also performed with the National Symphony of the Philippines.
Deats has performed widely as soloist and accompanist throughout the United States, as well as in Asia and Europe. In 1982 she accompanied cellist Alvin McCall at the VII International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow where he was a finalist. The McCall-Deats Duo has performed widely, including an annual chamber music series in Rockland County, New York.
At present Deats is head of the piano department of Rockland Conservatory of Music in Spring Valley, New York, and she teaches music at Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood, New Jersey and at the Manhattan School of Music. She continues her own study as well; for the past sixteen years she has taken master classes with Menahem Pressler of the renown Beaux Arts Trio.
Jan is on the faculty of Summertrios, a chamber music workshop and has served on the teaching staff of the Summer String Festival of the Elisabeth Morrow School.
Jan is the wife of Dr. Richard Deats. They have four children, sixteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren and reside in Nyack, New York.