Music Teachers Change Lives

I don't usually share anything on Facebook that includes the words, "Share if…"

It's just a matter of principle.

But, sometimes I need to share, and sometimes I need to say thank you.  So I'm not sharing on FB, but I will share here.

Post by Education Through Music, Inc.

Really every music teacher and every musician I've come in contact with shaped me, gave me part of who I am as a teacher, singer, and human being today.  

But these particular individuals hold a special place in my heart.  

Kris Bitton and Jan Mumford, the piano teachers of my youth who gave me a great start and were such wonderful people that I wanted to go to piano lessons and I wanted to practice.  

Mark Neiwirth, who introduced me to A Soprano on Her Head which was totally a new way of thinking for me.  He also laughed when I told him I was changing my major to music.  He knew me well enough to know that I wasn't piano major material, but his laugh motivated me to be a damn fine organ major and then voice major.

Frank Keenan, the Jr. High choir director who was a fine pianist, but instead of teaching and conducting from the piano, chose to give students the opportunity to learn to accompany.  I learned so much sitting at that piano. 

Dan Bowman began changing my life before I was even in one of his choirs.  From the time I was a little kid, I knew that I wanted to be in Gate City Singers and work with him when I was in high school.  I wanted it so much that when I had to choose between band and choir when I went to middle school, I quit playing the flute.  (I often wish that there had been a way to do both, or that I had kept playing even though I couldn't do band.)  As it turned out, I only got to have one year of choir with him before moving to another town, and I never got to be in Gate City, but the dream was real and it shaped many years of my life.  He also gave me opportunities to accompany, including being the  accompanist for Bye, Bye Birdie, the first of many shows where you'd find me at the piano.  

Darwin Wolford taught me many things about music and about me.  I learned that Bach is second only to God.  I learned to let myself be expressive in my playing.  He taught me that my fingers will find the right answers faster than over-thinking all the rules.   And most importantly, when I was a complete mess, he gave me another chance, letting me retake his class if I made an appointment for counseling.  

Scott Anderson pushed me and challenged me intellectually and musically.  And for the first time, in his choirs (both as accompanist and singer) I was able to feel that complete unity that comes when singers, conductor and accompanist are all in sync.  Some of the most beautiful moments of my life happened in those choir rehearsals and performances. 

I've often wondered what the result would be had Elizabeth Bossard and Glenda Maurice ever met.  I think they would either be the best of friends, or they wouldn't be able to even be in the same room with the other.  In some ways, they were so much alike, and in other ways, worlds apart.  Both of them learned to sing from listening to records of Eileen Farrell.  And I had a rare experience in my first  encounters with them.  "This is a woman to watch.  She is going to have a major impact on your life."  No one said it about them.  I felt it.  And it was real and powerful and prophetic.  I've written about both of them before, and probably will again, but for today's purpose, it is enough to say that of all my teachers, they were the ones who shaped me the most.  

Wow!  What gifts I was given!  And the only way to truly honor those gifts is to keep sharing them.  I teach because of the things I learned from these teachers.