Meredith Music Faculty Has Significant Presence at Annual Conference

Three members of the Meredith Music piano faculty made significant contributions at the annual conference of the North Carolina Music Teachers (NCMTA), October 5-8, 2022.  

As the largest gathering of private music teachers (both collegiate and independent) in the state, this event is an important time to forge connections between Meredith College, North Carolina teachers, and their students.  

The conference rotates to a different university each year, and this time was hosted by UNC-Greensboro, the first in-person conference since 2019.  Meredith College has hosted this conference frequently, including hosting portions of last year’s virtual conference with live streaming from campus. The 2021 event was successfully organized by Professor of Music Kent Lyman.

Lyman is serving in his second year as president of the state organization. He had a major role in conference planning and also presided over the conference each day. As president, he also represented the North Carolina chapter recently at the National Summit.

Instructor of Piano and Composition Tom Lohr presented “Exploration in Composition in Atonal Music.” In this session, he presented examples of composing using whole-tone, pentatonic and pandiatonic approaches to list only a few possibilities. Lohr had two students who entered original compositions in the 2022 NCMTA Young Composers competition.  Both students won in their respective divisions. Ty Park with “Starlight” won the Junior Division and Joshua Baucom with “Whispers from the North” won the Senior Division.  

Instructor of Piano Margaret Evans, Young Artist Coordinator, was heavily involved in running the all-day competition of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), held annually at this conference. In this competition, each student performs a brief solo recital of up to twenty-five minutes. Her student Andrew Wood was awarded Honorable Mention (third place) in the largest, highly competitive Senior Division. Wood was also invited to perform in the master class with the Conference Artist. Additionally, two of Evans’ students were chosen to perform in the State Honors Recital based on their achievements in spring 2022.