Marsha Mabrey | |
|---|---|
 Marsha Mabrey in 2020 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | November 7, 1949 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupations | Conductor, music educator |
Marsha Eve Mabrey (born November 7, 1949) is an African American conductor and educator. She was the first African American woman to be appointed and serve as the conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra.
Marsha Mabrey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 7, 1949. Her parents were Theodore Mabrey, an AeroSpace Design Engineer, and Ella Jones Mabrey, a homemaker.
Marsha began kindergarten in Niagara Falls, New York, and started the first grade in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mabrey began her musical studies in fourth grade on violin. By the time she reached the seventh grade, Mabrey decided to become an orchestra conductor, "one who shapes the total picture rather than one who is only one element of the symphonic whole." [1] She received a bachelor's and a master's degree from the University of Michigan [2] (BMus 1971, MMus 1972) where she studied with conductor/violinist Elizabeth A.H. Green and Theo Alcantara . She also studied viola at Michigan with Francis Bundra and violin with Ángel Reyes. Mabrey finished coursework toward a DMA in orchestral conducting at the University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music.
Mabrey was always interested in teaching as well as conducting. She was on the faculty and served as conductor of several university symphonies: Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota [3] (1978–80); Grand Valley State College (now Grand Valley State University), Allendale, Michigan (1980–82); [4] University of Oregon School of Music, Eugene, Oregon (1982–89), [5] and Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, Washington (1998). She served as Assistant Conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Grand Rapids, Michigan (1980–81). She has been Guest Conductor of many orchestras in the US and Germany including Sinfonietta Frankfurt (Concert tour: Frankfurt, Offenbach, Hanau and Schwalbach, Germany), the Oregon Symphony, the Savannah Symphony, The Women's Philharmonic of San Francisco, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. [1]
She served as vice president for Educational Affairs for the Detroit Symphony in Detroit [2] from 1991 to 1993, during which time she managed and facilitated the Ford Motor Company Youth Docent Program, Civic Orchestra, Educational Concert Series, DSOH Fellowship Program and the Unisys African-American Composers Forum and Symposium.
In 1996, she became the first African-American woman music director and Conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, Seattle, WA. In Seattle, she distinguished herself as both an advocate for community outreach and for programming lesser-known American composers such as Bern Herbolsheimer, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Joseph Curiale, and June Kirlin. [6]
In Seattle, Mabrey also served as a string specialist in the Bellevue School District, teaching at Newport High School and Chinook Middle School. In Bellevue, the students receive music instruction every day. Her expectations were high, and her students thrived under her direction. [7] She retired from the Bellevue School District in 2013.
Mabrey has been a board member of the Conductors Guild and a member of the League of American Orchestras and the Music Educators National Conference. [8]
During her term as assistant professor of music at the University of Oregon School of Music, Eugene, where she was conductor and director of the University Symphony, Mabrey developed and directed the West Coast Women Conductors and Composers in Performance Symposium (February 1985) and American Women Conductors and Composers in Performance Symposium (February 21–23, 1986). [9] These two significant symposia during the mid-80s and were supported by University of Oregon Center for the Study of Women in Society. The West Coast Symposium featured a panel of women composers including Elinor Armer, Emma Lou Diemer, Beverly Grigsby, Nancy Van de Vate, and Ann Hankinson. Participating conductors included Karen Keltner, Marsha Mabrey, Madeline Schatz, and Frances Steiner. The final evening of the symposium featured the presentation of women's orchestral works, including world premieres of works by Emma Lou Diemer and Nancy Van de Vate and a concert reading of a work by Ann Hankinson. [10] The American Symposium expanded to the national scene and featured composers and conductors such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Tania León, Libby Larsen, and Pauline Oliveros. [6] Composer and pianist Elinor Armer gave the keynote address at the American Symposium, which featured chamber recitals and orchestral works by women as well as panel discussions, lectures and workshops. [11]
From 1991 to 1993, during her tenure as vice-president for Education Affairs at the Detroit Symphony, Mabrey was developer and director of the African-American Composers Forum and Symposium, which was supported by a grant from Unisys. [12] [13]
Mabrey met her life partner Stephanie Wittman in 1976. Wittman is a social worker and psychotherapist. Wittman retired in 2014. Mabrey and Wittman married in 2013. [14]
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, neoromantic style. She has been called "one of America's most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers." She was a 1994 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Zwilich has served as the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
Andy Brick is an American composer, conductor and symphonist.
Antonia Louisa Brico was a Dutch-born conductor and pianist.
The Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) is the oldest youth orchestra in the United States, established in 1924 as the Portland Junior Symphony (PJS). Now based in Portland, Oregon, the orchestra's origin dates back to 1910, when music teacher Mary V. Dodge began playing music for local children in Burns, Oregon. Dodge purchased instruments for the children and organized the orchestra, which would become known as the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra. After touring the state, including a performance at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, the orchestra disbanded in 1918 when Dodge moved to Portland. There, Dodge opened a violin school and became music director of the Irvington School Orchestra.
Samuel Jones is an American composer and conductor.
Margaret Brouwer is an American composer and composition teacher. She founded the Blue Streak Ensemble chamber music group.
Daniel Hege is an American orchestral conductor. He is currently the music director of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and the Binghamton Philharmonic, and is the principal guest conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. Hege previously served as the music director of the former Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. He also makes numerous guest appearances with orchestras and music festivals across the country.
James Paul is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of the Oregon Coast Music Festival.
The Women's Philharmonic (TWP) was a San Francisco-based, professional orchestra founded by Miriam Abrams, Elizabeth Seja Min and Nan Washburn in 1981 and disbanded in 2004.
Adam Oscar Stern is an American conductor. Born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States, Stern was trained at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. He received his MFA in conducting in 1977 at the age of twenty-one, the youngest music student in CalArts' history to receive a master's degree.
Bethany Beardslee is an American soprano particularly noted for her collaborations with major 20th-century composers, such as Igor Stravinsky, Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, George Perle, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and her performances of great contemporary classical music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern. Her legacy amongst midcentury composers was as a "composer's singer"—for her commitment to the highest art of new music. Milton Babbitt said of her "She manages to learn music no one else in the world can. She can work, work, work." In a 1961 interview for Newsweek, Beardslee flaunted her unflinching repertoire and disdain for commercialism: "I don't think in terms of the public... Music is for the musicians. If the public wants to come along and study it, fine. I don't go and try to tell a scientist his business because I don't know anything about it. Music is just the same way. Music is not entertainment."
Eugene Linden was an American conductor. He conducted the first public performance of the Tacoma Philharmonic Orchestra in March 1934 and directed the Seattle Symphony from 1948 to 1950. He is also credited as founder of the now defunct Northwest Grand Opera Company.
Apo Hsu or Hsu Ching-hsin is a conductor born in Taiwan and resident of both Taiwan and the United States. Hsu served as music director of the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Springfield, Missouri. Her past appointments include serving as artistic director of The Women's Philharmonic in San Francisco, California, and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon. She has been a mentor for many young conductors on both sides of the world through her work at NTNU and at The Conductor's Institute at Bard College in New York. Her performances have been featured in national broadcasts in the United States, Taiwan, and Korea.
Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.
Cindy McTee is an American composer and educator.
Huw Edwards is a Welsh conductor. Edwards' conducting career began at age seventeen when he became music director of the Maidstone Opera Company in England. He later attended the University of Surrey, where he conducted the college orchestra along with an ensemble that he formed himself. At age twenty-three, he won a conducting competition which sent him to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He then held a lecturer position at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he was also a doctoral candidate. Edwards was conductor and music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic from 1995 to 2002 followed by the Seattle Youth Symphony from 2002 to 2005. He served as music director of the Portland Columbia Symphony from 2000 to 2012 and with the Olympia Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2020.
David Hattner is an American professional clarinetist and conductor currently serving as music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic. Raised in Toledo, Ohio, Hattner attended the Interlochen Arts Camp and Arts Academy, experiences which inspired him to become a professional musician and conductor. He graduated from the Arts Academy in 1986 and enrolled in Northwestern University where he studied clarinet performance under Robert Marcellus. In 1988 he placed second in the International Clarinet Association's Young Artist Competition and was selected to join the American-Soviet Youth Orchestra. He earned a music degree with honors in 1990.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.
Women are active in all aspects of classical music, such as instrumental performance, vocal performance, orchestral conducting, choral conducting, scholarly research, and contemporary composition. However, proportionately to men, their representation and recognition -especially at higher levels- falls a long way below their numbers.
Kay George Roberts is an American orchestral conductor and a professor of music at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She is the founder and musical director of the New England Orchestra. She is recognized as the first woman and second African American to receive a doctorate in musical arts from Yale University. As of 2018, she is one of the few female African American conductors in the world.