Missouri Music Notes

The MFMC Fall Planning Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, August 25th in the Dorsey Chapel on the Columbia College campus in Columbia Missouri. The state board will meet at 9 a.m. with the general meeting for all beginning at 10:30 a.m. The meeting should finish by 4 p.m at the latest. While the meeting is free, you are responsible for the lunch cost. More details are coming soon.

The National Federation is focusing on Club bylaws, so we will spend some time looking at specifics of Bylaws. We really need to have a delegate of each Club in attendance with their Club’s bylaws. There will be a Juniors meeting to discuss Festival details and a Seniors meeting as well.

Never fear, it will not be all meetings. There will be musical moments sprinkled throughout including Together We Sing.

All Missouri members are encouraged to attend. A state meeting is great for learning more about the Federation as a whole – how it can help you and how important you are to the Federation! It is still our Centennial – let’s keep up the momentum! The registration will be in the next newsletter. We hope to see you there!

Opera in the Ozarks at Inspiration Point, near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, is well underway at this time. This year Opera in the Ozarks is featuring three productions, Gioacchino Rossini’s classic bel canto Italian masterpiece The Barber of Seville, Johann Strauss Jr.’s waltz comedy Die Fledermaus, and Douglas Moore’s dramatic American classic, The Ballad of Baby Doe.

More than forty young singers from throughout the country were selected for this summer’s Opera in the Ozarks program through an auditioning process last winter. The program also includes an orchestra of over thirty players, and several conductors, music coaches and stage directors who work with the young singers throughout the summer.

The opera presentations, which began on June 22 and continues through July 20, are the culmination of the summer. Please check the Opera in the Ozarks web site, www.opera.org, for a full schedule of the performances.

Many visitors like to attend Opera in the Ozarks during the last week when you can catch all three operas on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening, which this year is July 17-20. These performances coincide with Federation Days (July 17-21) when many of your fellow music club members will be visiting and attending daytime sessions for the South Central Region of NFMC.

Wednesday evening, July 18, includes a special event called Taste of Opera, held at the historic Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. For a ticket price of only $50 you can enjoy a reception, a full dinner, and music performances by many of the young singers from Opera in the Ozarks. This is always a treat for everybody who attends the operas and the Federation Days sessions.

Nancy Preis is the General Director of Opera in the Ozarks and Tom Cockrell is the Artistic Director and usually conducts the orchestra. We know you would enjoy a visit to Opera in the Ozarks to hear these outstanding performances, and we hope you can join us!

To register for Federation Days, please contact Terry Blair, who is the registration chair, and don’t forget to reserve a room at the Inn at the Ozarks, a Best Western hotel in Eureka Springs which is the Federation Days headquarters and meeting place.

The Missouri Federation of Music Clubs held its Centennial Convention in Kansas City, Missouri at the Country Club United Methodist Church May 17-19. Julie Watson, the President of the Missouri Federation, presided. The Centennial Convention was attended by 46 members representing 14 music clubs.

At the opening session on Friday, May 17, we heard a lovely fanfare by Mary Davis on the organ. Our featured artist, internationally acclaimed composer, arranger, and pianist Mark Hayes, gave a presentation about his history and development as a composer, his compositional techniques and methods, and entertained the conventioneers with stories and examples from his interesting career.

Five of the districts each gave a presentation on a 20 year span of our Missouri history. It was great to see the various creative ways they shared the details, including an original song presented in attire from that period.

The attendees heard a fine tenor, Jonathan Ray, sing operatic excerpts as part of the presentation about Opera in the Ozarks. Ray is currently an apprentice artist with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

The banquet on Friday evening featured the national NFMC president, Michael Edwards, who discussed progress being made by NFMC on the national level and activities of the various states. He said he was impressed by the attendance and enthusiasm of the delegates at the Missouri Centennial Convention.

In the evening, there was a Missouri Music All-Stars Concert featuring former NFMC Young Artists Mia Hynes and James Cockman III and featured artist Mark Hayes. Both Cockman and Hayes played several of their own arrangements.

Saturday, May 18 began with a memorial service led by Chaplain Lorraine Long. Then, we broke into Junior and Senior Track sessions led by Mark Hayes (“Keyboard Improvisation”) and Rachelle Norman (“What is Musical Health?”), respectively. David Izzard gave a program on “How the Sausage is Made,” about how music makes it to the big screen.

We enjoyed a Missouri Music Makers concert to finish the convention. We heard some fascinating duets from former Ellis Duo Janet Fetterman with Mia Hynes. The 2018 Most Musical Family, the Bryants from Bolivar performed various selections of folk music with different combinations of instruments and singing. The concert concluded with 3 lovely selections by the Centennial Choir directed by Mark Hayes, accompanied by Melody Stroth.

The attendees enjoyed a Kansas City barbeque lunch before the convention was adjourned.

The State Junior Competition was held in the afternoon under the direction of David Anschutz.

Special thanks go to members of the Convention committee, including Beci Lankford, John Schaefer, Eileen Chase, Sanna Cass, Melody Stroth, Julie Silfverberg, Myra Lemons, Marilyn Miller and Mia Hynes. We also want to thank the clubs that contributed food, service and/or donations: Morning Etude, Federated Music Teachers, KC Musical Club, Evening Etude, Melody Makers, Show-Me Club, and Warrensburg Federated Music Club. We are also grateful to all who pitched in at the last minute to help things run smoothly. We made some great memories!

The State Festival Competition for Juniors was held on May 19th at 1:30 pm at the Country Club United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Mo. Sixteen district winners from throughout the state participated. A big thank you to David Anschutz for organizing the event.

1st Place:

Willy Jiang, piano, student of David Tauscher
Alexa Morgan, voice, student of Myra Lemons
Michael Lu, violin, student of Joseph Kaminsky

Honorable Mention:

Noah Gruman, violin, student of LaVonne McDaniel
Bethany Manring, piano, student of Kristi Larsen
Dawson Ren, piano, student of Marlita Weiss

Youth Music Camps at Inspiration Point scholarship:

Tanner Henley, piano, student of Karen Larvick

Congratulations!

The National Conference of the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 19-23. This is where the business of NFMC is conducted. In addition to the various division meetings and business, there are lots of music and friendships made and renewed.

The nightly performances featured the Trinity Irish Dancers, Dr. Jeffrey Hollander (pianist), current Men’s Voice Young Artist Andre Chiang, and duo Stas Venglevski (accordion) & Tatyana Krasnobayeva (dulcimer). Sprinkled throughout the conference were delightful musical moments by the Milwaukee Police Band, Mary Kate Bielinski (2017 Marilyn Caldwell Award winner), Jacob Beranek (Class IV Junior Composer national winner) with violinist David Perry, Alyssa Warcup (2017 Wendell Irish Viola Award winner), and Joshua Brown (2018 Stillman Kelley Award winner).

We enjoyed presentations by George Keck on Archives, Ben Barbera on Milwaukee-City of Festivals, Lee Ann Cummings on Arts Advocacy, Louis W. Rose on Parliamentary Procedure, Pat Steege on North Central Region’s Junior Composer programs, Linda Edelstein on Milwaukee’s Youth Symphony Orchestra,

Dr. Jeffrey Hollander on the Great American Songbook, and Sam Ecoff on recording options for your studio. We got a sample peak at the new Festival Online System. Although it is still under construction, it looks to be much more user friendly. The Rose Fay Thomas lunch included a harpist and an overview on Wisconsin cheeses by Patrick Geoghegan.

Missouri had a nice showing of our 11 attendees at the conference. Several of them sang with the Festival Chorus, which sang 11 songs for the conference attendees. The Chorus was conducted by James Norden and accompanied by Dee Blaser.

The Friday night banquet featured music by the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra String Ensemble and a presentation on Les Paul by Sue Baker. Saturday started with the Memorial Service, followed by Junior Day with a composition masterclass by Randall Davidson.

Next year, the NFMC National Convention will be held in Jacksonville, Florida. It will feature the elections and the Young Artist auditions. You’ll want to go! Hope to see you there!

Email: Julie@JewelsofTravel.com
Website: www.MissouriFMC.org
Phone: 913-908-2386
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missourifmc/