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From the Desk of Lia Jensen-Abbott, President

Dear MMTA Colleagues and Friends,

I write this to you all after a wonderful State Conference organized

by our Vice President Béatrice Ellis. What a great few days it was

catching up with friends and colleagues, and cultivating new rela-

tionships as well. Furthermore, it was so refreshing to learn so

many new things from our presenters—what an inspiring time it

the morning darkness, and to feel the calmness. I had the chance to

reflect upon how meaningful the state conference is professionally,

personally, and musically. As many of you may have noticed, it

has become more and more apparent over the last several years that

conference attendance has declined, due to many factors, but at the

same time, costs have (not shockingly) risen.

To that end, I wanted to inform all of our membership about some

of the challenges MMTA faces when putting together a state con-

ference. For instance, many of you might not know that negotiating

reasonable room rates for our membership is often very difficult

ance is declining, and like many other states, MMTA will begin revisiting the scope, timeline, and timeframe of

future conferences as a way to lessen the burden financially on our organization, without sacrificing quality.

This is something that will be an ongoing future discussion with our Board of Directors, and after careful con-

sideration, I wanted to bring it to our membership’s attention so that if and when the conference profile changes

in some way, you will all know why. For now, however, I want to again congratulate Béatrice Ellis and all of

her team on a truly remarkable experience in every detail in Lansing.

As a final thought, we are moving into the holiday season, and I wish each and every one of you, your families,

your students and their families, a joyous and peaceful time.

--Lia Jensen-Abbott, President

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a challenge. I am still not done with closing the books on the 2019 conference and it took a while to settle on

ano faculty of Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan, the Ann Arbor Community Music

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Winner, Madeline Cha, violin Teacher, Sunmi Chang

Winner, Natalia Warthen, saxophone Teacher, Joseph Lulloff

Alternate, Megan Chow, saxophone Teacher, Timothy McAllister

Honorable Mention, Jacob Peery, saxophone Teacher, Michael Coonrod

Honorable Mention, Haruka Taguchi, saxophone Teacher, Timothy McAllister

Winner, Colin Holstein, Tuba Teacher, Kenneth Kroesche

Alternate, Scott Voytuch, Trombone Teacher, Kenneth Kroesche

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Alternate, Andrew Gagiu, cello Teacher, Bruce Uchimura

Winner, Andrei Mazanko, clarinet Teacher, Arthur Campbell

Alternate, Philip Kleutgens, saxophone Teacher, Timothy McAllister

Honorable Mention, Alex Toth, saxophone Teacher, John Nichol

Honorable Mention, Eric Zheng, saxophone Teacher, Joseph Lulloff

Honorable Mention, Evan Harris, saxophone Teacher, Joseph Lulloff

Mary Ann Anschutz, Composition Coordinator

Karen Feilla, Junior Division Coordinator

Steven Mastrogiocomo, Senior Division Coordinator

Ruth Goveia, Young Artist Division Coordinator

Three more for this column, hundreds more for my appetite. These are tried and true choices: the Concerto for

Orchestra by Bela Bartok, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Shostakovich Symphony Number 5. All standard

by now they had at their inception varying degrees of acceptance, the Rite being the most difficult for audiences

to grasp. I believe they help to define much of what is magnificent (and in the case of the Shostakovich also

painful beyond description) about the music of the 20th century. Yes there is some bite to the harmonies, and

ballet music) but they are the essences (in my opinion) of the greatness of the three (quite different) composers.

All three were masters of orchestration, and all three wrote accessible music in all forms. And all three I have

listened to with wonderment every time I hear them.

One more inclusion, and I must confess it is my favorite of all: It is not a piece of music, but a book: If you have

sight that I admire and confess to being envious of. She’d never end a sentence with a preposition, as I just did!

My holiday present to all of you is to urge you to seek out this book if you have not already done so, and enjoy

it to the utmost. Seasons greetings to all my readers!!!!

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By Louis Nagel

’Tis the season to be jolly. With festive times already upon us and the holidays at the end of December start of

January (covering a wide swath of celebratory customs) what better way for musicians to celebrate than with

music? I would like to play the “desert island” game in this column and share with you some recordings, or in

of Jesus. Lengthy, (about three hours for an average recording) it is inspired from beginning to end with some

of Bach’s most exalted music. As was the case with so much of his music, it saw the light of day only once, in

1734 and was not performed again until 1857. It need not be heard all in one sitting, but it is hard to turn it off

and return to ordinary daily activities!

Bach gets two entries on my list, as I would love to have the Brandenburg Concerti with me. Though my fa-

vorite among them is the Sixth, I happily soak up any one of them—they are sheer delight and genius. And, as

the Oratorio afore mentioned, they were ignored in the composer’s lifetime!

Next, I would offer a Mozart Symphony —any (or all) of the last three, E-flat Major, G Minor, or C Major; all

For me the Schubert Sonata in B-flat Major, his last sonata, is special beyond words. And I admit that per-

forming it is my greatest joy at the piano. Long, expressive of a variety of moods, it has become over the years

for me something of “the story of a trill”! How Schubert uses and develops that almost unearthly sound in the

bass at the beginning of the forty plus minute sonata is simply miraculous. He was dying when he wrote that

sonata. It is his vision of eternity whether conscious or not.

We must include Beethoven on this list, but what? What of this composer would you like to take with you to

your desert island? I am not sure, as I type these words, what I would want, but to leave him out is unthinka-

ble. What flashed into my mind/ear as I wrote that sentence was the Eighth Symphony! Maybe not on your

City. And the Eighth is Beethoven, despite his physical tortures and his battles over his nephew’s custody and

his isolation from society, in one of the happiest and rollicking pieces he wrote. Truly, when I hear this I laugh

I would like to take the Mahler Fourth Symphony with me on this trip. It is Mahler at his happiest, if that isn’t

too close to being an oxymoron. And its second movement with its “fiddle” solo (perhaps reminiscent of the

Nagel, cont. on p. 7