Newsletter April 2006

Meetings Coming Up

Monday, April 10 at 7:30 pm (not Tuesday, as in the yearbook)
Clubhouse of Mary Williams
Chimneyhill Clubhouse
9223 Emberglow (not 8223 as in the yearbook)

Program: Cherie Bell, Soprano, Barbara Hill-Moore, SMU Voice Professor (see more below); Megan Gomen and Kaleena Loard – flute and harp.

Hostesses: Joann Turrentine, Cherie Bell and Fran Pearson.

We will be hearing from our Nominating Committee with our slate of new officers and will discuss the situation of the piano at the library.

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Saturday, May 13 at 11 am at the downtown library – 4th floor

Good news from Mary Ann Taylor! Since we prevailed upon Edie Pfautsch to host the March meeting, we are changing the location for May. We will be in the Gallery on the 4th floor of the Dallas Public Library for the May meeting. It will be set up for 25-30. There is a grand piano which will have been tuned for an opera guild performance the week before. There will also be three tables set up for food and eating. There are no tablecloths; theirs have disappeared from the library! Contact Mary Ann if you would like to bring cloths. Parking is available downstairs in the basement for 75 cents an hour, maximum $3 for Saturday.

Program: Les Amis Ensemble; Biography by Sylvia Lerch; Billy Lawley, music therapy demonstration; Leslie King, soprano. Hostesses: Everyone bring your favorite salad, casserole or dessert. New officers will be installed

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Susan's Song

Dear Mu Phis,

JOYS AND CONCERNS

In many area churches, there is a time during the service for what might be called “Joys and Concerns”. Without any specific religious intent, I¹d like to apply that idea to my present thoughts about the Dallas Alumni Chapter.

First, the joys! We hope that all of you were able to see the wonderful article in the Dallas Morning News on our own Frances Stuart (who, incidentally, was my first teacher)! It was a wonderful tribute to a long and dedicated teaching career. It is difficult for Frances to attend our evening meetings but we hope she will be able to come to our May luncheon. I was also pleased to see Sue Johnson at our March meeting, and to welcome talented new member Bettye Zoller, whose mother, Hazel Volkart, was a Mu Phi Composition Contest winner.

I was also pleased to see the announcements of our Library series appear in the paper periodically, and to hear the positive response we get from our performers in this lovely venue. The Library parking lot below the building is quite secure if you are concerned about street parking, and makes it easy to attend the recitals. The piano has been tuned again to adjust to the air conditioning. There are two recitals remaining in the spring series, pianists from TWU on April 23 and area Renaissance musicians to close on April 30.

And now, the concerns. I¹m sure most of us would like to see Dallas Alumni remain a vital chapter, as we have been through most of our history, offering friendship and support to our members as well as outstanding service to the community. First, I would urge each member to take a moment and look through your membership roster. Think of someone you haven¹t seen at meetings for a while and give them a call to see how things are going and offer friendship and support. Many cope with family members who are ill, some have physical problems of their own in addition to their professional responsibilities and are just unable to attend, but I believe all would still appreciate knowing that their friends are thinking about them. Sunshine Chairman Frances Estes is always willing to send a card as well, but I would like for all of us to take part in reaching out.

Second, do welcome our new members, and particularly our younger ones, to let them know how much we value their contributions and vitality! We are pleased that Mu Chi graduates Meghan Gomen and Kaleena Loard will be able to perform for us in April. We are also really looking forward to hearing a presentation by Triangle honoree Barbara Hill-Moore, professor of voice at SMU in April, and a varied program at our May luncheon at the Dallas Public Library.

Yours in the service of Music, Friendship and Harmony,
Susan Poelchau, President

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Spring Meetings

February Meeting

The February meeting was a delightful joint program presented by SAI and Mu Phi at First Methodist Church and hosted by the SAIs. Performers:

Laurie Shulman, Piano and Debbie Ragsdale, Flute played works by Samuel Barber and Georg Inonescu.

Jane Echols, Piano and Marla Maxon, Soprano performed three Brahms songs.

Jane Aten, Viola and Nelta Owen, Cello played Two Pieces for Viola and Cello by Rebecca Clark.

Claudia Jameson, Soprano with Tena Hehn at the piano performed a song by Hindemith.

The Camerata Quintet (Jackie Akin - Flute, Frances Estes - Oboe, Jerry Brumbaugh - Clarinet, Kelbert Taylor – Bassoon and Nita Redmond - French Horn) played works by Joseph Hayden, Robert Washburn, Mozart and Scott Joplin.

March Meeting

The March meeting was held at Edie Pfautsch’s home. Mary Williams and Kay Newman discussed some of the famous composers of Vienna and narrated a slide and recorded music sampling of some of their compositions.

Olivia Millman spoke on the Jubilee Fund – a neighborhood project in the Fair Park area that is now in two buildings offering day care, after school care, a computer lab, family events, ESL classes, etc. She would like any of our musicians who are interested to help with an after school music program she would like to start. Olivia is a pianist herself and is interesting in bringing music to inner city children. If you are interested contact Mary Ann Taylor for Olivia’s number.

Co-hostesses were Sadie Rowe, Susan Poelchau and Sue Johnson.

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Sunday Concert Series Schedule

We had two concerts cancel this spring due to weather and another due to illness (though that one had substitute performers.) The last two concerts for the season will be:

Apr 23 - Piano Students of Dr. Richard Shuster, Texas Woman's University

Apr 30 - “Renaissance Music for Viols and Recorders” – Dallas Renaissance and Medieval Music: Hazel Mosely, Bill Patterson, Harald Poelchau, Susan Poelchau, Howard Scheib, Susan Scheib and Jack Waller

Remember that the biographies of the performers and programs are posted on our website as they become available on the Sunday Concert Series page (click on Performers or Concert Programs). Let’s support our last two programs for the year!

Claudia Jameson is already receiving requests from performers to be on the Sunday Concert Series schedule for next year. If you or your group or excellent musicians you know would like to perform, please contact Claudia soon to get the date you would like.

All concerts are at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library Auditorium, 1515 Young Street, Dallas TX on Sundays at 3:00 PM - Concerts are FREE and open to the public.

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Heart and Soul

Frances Deaderick Stuart, 94, has been giving piano lessons since age 14. While many of her peers have died or retired, she teaches at her Highland Park home at least 5 days a week.80 years of teaching etudes and scales isn't enough.

Reprinted from the Dallas Morning News, By KRISTEN HOLLAND, Staff Writer

Twenty-five minutes into her piano lesson, Megan Waterston is about spent. The 5-year-old who sat erect at the beginning of her lesson has folded her legs on the bench, red lights flashing from her sneakers. Her stock response is "I don't get it." Her enthusiastic giggle has been reduced to tired chuckles, hardly enough to make her blond curls jiggle.

"See if you still know `Hot Cross,'" Frances Deaderick Stuart urges, squeezing one more melody out of the student 89 years her junior. "Oh, that's easy," Megan said as her right hand pounded out "Hot Cross Buns" on the keys.

Not halfway through the popular nursery rhyme, Mrs. Stuart jumped in. "You left out one," she says, tapping the forgotten key.

Such is how piano lessons with Mrs. Stuart have played out for 80 years. While many of her peers have died or retired, the 94-year-old still teaches piano five to seven days a week. Students seven to eight decades younger than their beloved teacher hammer away on her chestnut-colored Steinway & Sons grand piano as her grandmotherly, high-pitched voice guides them through piece after piece. Rarely is a harsh word spoken. Instead, the Highland Park resident prods her pupils along until she's satisfied with their performance.

"Even though we do the same thing over and over, I still have fun," Mrs. Stuart said after one of Megan's recent piano lessons. "I was born liking kids."

The woman often called the matriarch of Dallas' piano community never dreamed of teaching piano. She started at age 14 because neighbors heard she could play and asked if she'd teach their children.
"I just wanted to play," she said. "I thought teaching was sort of degrading. I thought it would be so dull and uninteresting, but of course, it was far from that."

Born Nov 8, 1911, in Fort Worth, Nena Frances Deaderick came to Dallas when she was 14 months old because her father, Claude Deaderick, was transferred to the city. Mr. Deaderick worked for the Texas & Pacific Railroad until his death in 1918. After her father died, Mrs. Stuart's mom worked as a dressmaker. Nina Clara Deaderick also hand-copied music for 10 cents a line. Money was tight, but Mrs. Stuart said she had a happy childhood.

At her mother's insistence, she started taking piano lessons when she was 8. "She could play anything by ear," Mrs. Stuart recalled, adding that because her mother couldn't read music "she was adamant that I learn to read the notes."

By the time she hit her teens, Mrs. Stuart was playing at a Mockingbird Lane dance studio in exchange for dance lessons. "We would play one class, then get to dance one class," she said. "I think if I'd had my choice I would have maybe chosen dancing. But I got stuck playing the piano, and that was fun." It paid off.

While in high school, the pianist won two major music scholarships. One took her to the New York School of Music and Arts to study with Arthur Friedheim. Another sent her to study with Carol Liszniewski at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, one of the nation's top music schools.

Mrs. Stuart graduated from Highland Park High in 1929 and received a bachelor's in piano performance from Southern Methodist University in 1932. At SMU, she studied with Paul van Katwijk, who conducted the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1925 to 1937.

"He was a role model that was absolutely unequaled," Mrs. Stuart said. "I learned that you could play the piano and be a nice person."

She married John Stuart in 1937, and the couple had two children. Mr. Stuart died of the flu in 1994. Their son, John, lives in California. Daughter Betty Lynn died from an upper respiratory infection at age 6.
"We were not lucky enough to keep her, but she was great while she lasted," Mrs. Stuart said, her voice barely a whisper. "She would have made a fine piano teacher if we could have kept her."

Mrs. Stuart performed a few times but gradually became more dedicated to teaching.

Susan Haas, a piano teacher and professional harpist in Wash¬ington, called Mrs. Stuart "the Winston Churchill of the piano teachers."
"She would always teach me to say `yet.' `You can't do it, yet!'" Ms. Haas said. "She believed in me and my abilities more than I believed in my own." Dallas resident Ruth Millis said that her colleague is as tenacious as she is perky. "As soon as I got out of college she called me and said, `Ruth, I want you to start teaching; and I'm going to send you some students,’" Mrs. Millis said. "I told my husband I am not going to be a piano teacher." "Well, I ate those words," Mrs. Millis chuckled. "Frances wouldn't let go of me."

Mrs. Stuart's nurturing spirit has seized many of her students.
Hunched over in a chair next to her piano, Mrs. Stuart reached toward Megan, placing her long slender fingers over the young girl's hand.
"This is finger one, finger two finger three," Mrs. Stuart said nudging her student's fingers down onto the keys one at a time.

"You did it," Mrs. Stuart shrieked, her eyes sparkling. "May be we can put the left hand in."

E-mail kholland@dallasnews.com; Photos by DARON DEAN/Staff Photographer

See a 2003 Interview with Frances on our website: http://www.muphiepsilondallas.org - Interviews - Frances

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Barbara Hill Moore
Reprinted from Vol. 99 of The Triangle

Barbara Hill Moore, Soprano and Professor of Voice at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts since 1974, served as Department Head from 1977 through 1992. She received the B.S. from Lincoln University in Missouri and the M.S. as a Graduate Fellow from the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois.

A favorite of orchestral conductors, Ms. Hill Moore has performed such varied works as Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, De Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Brahm's Requiem, Berlioz's Cleopatra, Strauss' Vier Letzte Lieder and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with orchestras through-out the U.S. and Europe, including Kiel and Nuremberg, Germany Symphony orchestras, the St. Louis Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Greensboro, NC Symphony, San Antonio Symphony and eight concerts with the Dallas Symphony.

She is a frequent performer in Europe, especially Germany, where she has sung concerts of American music every year since 1983. Berliners know Ms. Hill Moore for her interpretation of the role of Jenny in Kurt Weill's Three Penny Opera, which she per-formed there 39 times on stage and television. Recognized by European critics as an exciting, artistic performer, Ms. Hill Moore's concerts of American art songs have been featured in Summer Festivals since 1984.

Ms. Hill Moore is President and founder of the Bruce Foote Memorial Scholarship Foundation in honor of her former SMU colleague, mentor, and friend, Bruce Foote. The Foote Scholarship is awarded annually to minority students in vocal performance at SMU.

Note: Our Alumni Advisor writes -

Mary:

Thanks for the newsletter! I loved reading the article about Barbara Moore in The Triangle, and of course I was honored to have been elected to ACME myself, but I was just a little annoyed that when our new Triangle staff wrote up the articles about us, they never mentioned that I had been Mrs. Moore's student as an undergraduate at SMU--so that, really, BOTH ACME nominations for 2005 were proof of the superlative work that she does! So I wanted to make sure that at least Dallas was well aware of the whole story.

Loyally,

Kurt-Alexander Zeller
International 3rd Vice President/Alumni Advisor

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Bagaduce Music Lending Library

You may recall that during my 2004 travels, I came across the Bagaduce Music Lending library in Blue Hill, Maine. The library was started by someone who donated a huge collection of choral scores and it has continued to grow; it now has a good selection of orchestral, chamber music, solo music for voice, piano, and all instruments as well. The music is stored in a climate controlled building and is maintained by a small staff and lots of volunteers.

An organization can join the library with a $25 fee per year and borrow music for as long as needed for rehearsal and performance - 3-4 months - for a small fee per score ($.50 - $4.00). Keep it in mind for your orchestras, choruses and a place to donate unused music. Contact Bagaduce Music Lending Library, 3 Music Library Lane (P.O. Box 829), Blue Hill, ME 04614. Tel: 207-374-5454. Fax: 207-374-2733.

E-mail: library@bagaducemusic.org

Website: www.bagaducemusic.org

Mary

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