University of Oklahoma MTNA Collegiate Chapter

Piano and Pizza!

2011-12-13T10:07:00.005-06:00

MTNA members were delighted to host the 3rd biannual Group Piano Review Session on Sunday, 12/11. This event is targetted towards all students taking a group piano class at OU. With final exams coming up, MTNA members use this event to provide free tutoring on exam material and free pizza! We had a great turn-out this year, with over 40 students in attendance and 11 pizzas eaten! There was a lot of positive feedback from students who feel that the review session was really helpful. Good luck to all students on their finals this week!

MTNA Performs Holiday Music at Local Hospital

2011-12-11T21:08:00.004-06:00

Several MTNA members travelled to Norman Regional Hospital on Saturday, 12/10/11 to play holiday music. Some members improvised while others played solo or four-hand arrangements of well-known tunes. We had a clarinet player join us for the afternoon for a lovely collaboration. In addition, one member played winter music composed by another member of our chapter! We hope that our music brightened the days of those passing through the hospital. We were so pleased to provide our talents for a good cause and hope to play for similar events in the future.

2011 Bake Sale

2011-11-07T11:31:00.003-06:00

MTNA held its annual Bake Sale at the NAMTA Fall Festival on 10/29/11. The chapter was very successful this year and raised more than its goal in fundraising money! In addition to baking and selling baked goods, chapter members helped monitor for judges. This year, we added a new component to the Fall Festival- face painting! As a way to attract kids to the bake sale table and to NAMTA's Kidsfest room, we provided free face painting to kids after they played for judges. We had a great turn out for face-painting and had a lot of fun meeting the kids! Congratulations to everyone who played in the Fall Festival, and a BIG thanks to NAMTA for allowing us to hold our fundraiser at its event!

"Something Old, Something New..."

2011-10-03T23:11:00.003-05:00

OUMTNA was pleased to host one of our own alums for an enlightening presentation on Friday. Jennifer Tripi, recent graduate, spoke about motivating piano repertoire in a lecture entitled "Something Old, Something New...Motivating Advanced Teaching Pieces". Attendees were able to discover old favorites, like Debussy's Claire de Lune, as well as some exciting new pieces, like Alexina Louie's Star Light Star Bright collection. Jennifer supplemented her lecture with beautiful performances of selected pieces. We learned so much from Jennifer's presentation and wish her all the best as she presents it in Colorado next week!

Piano Matchmaker- Match Made!

2011-09-19T11:34:00.002-05:00

Every year, OUMTNA has an ongoing program called "Piano Matchmaker". We find people who want to donate their piano, and in turn give this piano to a family in need. Receiving families go through an application process. At least one child in the family must be taking piano/music lessons or would like to take piano lessons in the future. Many thanks to Rob and Ellen Wisdom of Norman, who recently donated their console piano to our program! We were able to give the piano to the Pham family in Moore. May Pham, 11 years old (pictured) is a student of local Norman piano teacher Mary Sallee. With the help of OU piano tuner Ross Trawick, our chapter facilitated the move and tuning of this piano on Saturday, September 17th. A few chapter members helped to move the piano and met the donors to thank them in person. May Pham was really excited about her new piano and was delighted to play it for us as soon as it arrived! If you are interested in donating a piano to our program or would like to apply to receive a piano, please email us at OUMTNA.gmail.com. Thanks to everyone who was involved with this match!

MTNA Meets Emanuel Ax!

2011-09-11T10:13:00.005-05:00

On Saturday night, 9/10/11, several of our MTNA members and friends traveled to Dallas, TX to see pianist Emanuel Ax play Brahms' first piano concerto with the Dallas Symphony orchestra. The second half of the program included Prokofiev's Symphony 5. With 4th row seats, all attending members enjoyed a truly spectacular performance. During intermission, Ax was gracious enough to meet everyone, sign CDs and pose for a picture. We were pleased to learn that Ax happens to be an Oklahoma Sooners fan (he even asked us how the team was doing). Look above to see a picture with Emanuel Ax and the attending members!

Fall 2011 Meet and Greet and Introductory Meeting

2011-08-31T17:32:00.002-05:00

MTNA was pleased to kick off the year with the annual "Meet and Greet" last Sunday night. Old and new members gathered at Orange Leaf to eat frozen yogurt and get to know each other. We are so thrilled to have 9 new members this year, including string players and undergraduates! The chapter also met for its first official meeting on Tuesday. We discussed tentative events and fundraisers for the year and set definite dates for some events coming up: the Fall Festival Bake Sale and Face Painting Fundraiser (October 29th) and the Parent's Night Out Fundraiser (November 11th).

2011 National Conference in Milwaukee

2011-04-10T14:20:00.001-05:00

OU MTNA the University of Michigan Collegiate Chapters joined forces to present, "Liszt for the Advancing High School Pianist." The presentation featured performances of Liszt's Consolation No. 3 in D-flat and Valse Oubliee No. 1, as well as a sampling of "preparatory" repertoire by various other composers. One of the highlights of the whole process was finally meeting the UM Collegiate members in person after many months of communicating solely through the internet. The conference overall was a wonderful chance to meet other Collegiate members from across the country as well.

Night of Collaborative Music

2011-01-20T12:41:00.001-06:00

We are excited to kick-off the spring semester with a Night of Collaborative Music! All MTNA members are invited to attend this Saturday, 1/22 from 7:30-10:00 PM. We will be sight-reading piano duets as well as duo sonatas and ensemble music with other instrumentalists. Please contact oumtna@gmail.com for further information about the event.

Group Piano Final Exam Review

2010-12-29T14:22:00.000-06:00

OU MTNA chapter members helped grouppiano students review final exam material. Students appreciated the extra practice time, feedback, and of course free pizza. Please check out our flickr page for photos from the event. We look forward to another review session in the May!

Fay Adams Suzuki Presentation

2010-11-08T16:11:00.001-06:00

This Thursday, November 11, Fay Adams will give a presentation on Suzuki piano. Ms. Adams is Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and is also President and Director of the Suzuki Piano School of Knoxville. Please join us from 1:30-2:30 in 009 to learn more about Suzuki teaching.

Sweet Success

2010-10-09T19:02:00.001-05:00

This year at the NAMTA Fall Festival, teachers, students, and familiesenjoyed delicious treats provided by the OUMTNA members. Thanks toDirector of Fundraising, Sarah Blazs, for coordinating this event, andto everyone who contributed your time and talents to make this yeara success.

October Events

2010-09-26T23:05:00.002-05:00

The NAMTA Fall Festival will take place on October 9. Please check our bulletin board for information on helping with the bake sale and monitoring. Bake sale items should be dropped off in 003 on Friday evening so that we can begin the bake sale by 8AM.

Secondly, we have reserved time to perform at the Norman Regional Hospital on the afternoon of October 23. There will be a sign-up sheet posted on the bulletin board outside of Dr. Magrath's studio (CH 307). We hope you will join us for this great chance to perform for an appreciative audience and to connect with the community.

First Meeting

2010-08-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

Our first official meeting will be held this Friday, September 3rd at 2:00 PM in CMC 003. Please scroll down to the previous entry to read about the director positions we have available for this year. One of our strengths in the past has been the broad range of experiences our members bring from diverse backgrounds. We would love to continue this and have everyone involved! Please do not hesitate to contact chapter officers (oumtna@gmail.com) with any questions.

2010-2011 Welcome

2010-08-22T20:22:00.001-05:00

We would like to extend a warm welcome to new students and returning members. We will hold an informal meet and greet (and eat!) on Saturday, August 28th at 6PM at Jason's Deli. This is an opportunity to meet with returning members, discuss past activities, and to brainstorm and share ideas. One of our goals for this year is to expand our membership to include piano majors in all degree programs, including undergraduates, so we encourage everyone to attend and learn more about the benefits of joining MTNA.

Our first official meeting will be held during the first two weeks of classes. At this time, we will hold elections for directors and discuss upcoming projects and other ways to become involved. The following director positions are open for those interested in taking on a more significant leadership role. Please read the following descriptions to see if any of these interest you.

Director of Fundraising: coordinating fundraisers such as bake sales, ushering for OU School of Music concerts, program ad sales, and developing and organizing new fundraising events

Director of Publicity: maintaining the bulletin board, creating and posting fliers for meetings and events, possibly assisting with website maintenance

Director of Community Outreach: coordinating events and performances on and off campus that involve or benefit members of the community, managing the Piano Matchmaker program

(NEW!) NAMTA Liaison: attending NAMTA (Norman Area Music Teachers Association) meetings on Friday mornings, facilitating communication between OUMTNA and NAMTA

(NEW!) Archivist: collecting records of chapter activities including photos, programs, fliers, recordings, and video, overseeing compilation of our application for MTNA Collegiate Chapter of the Year

Please check this site and our bulletin board regularly for updates, information regarding our first official meeting. We hope to see you at the meet and greet, and look forward to an active, productive, and fun year!

Have a Heart Recital

2010-02-25T20:33:00.003-06:00

This year at the Have A Heart Recital, members performed both known pieces and lesser known pieces. This years donations benefitted both the MusicLink Foundation and the OU MTNA chapter's trip to the National Convention in March. As you can see by the pictures, we had a great time putting together this recital!

Christmas Caroling

2010-01-23T19:12:00.005-06:00

The chapter played Christmas-themed music at a local senior citizens establishment, Full Circle Adult Day Center. Chapter members prepared solo Christmas piano arrangements, and also sang Christmas carols with the senior citizens. At the end of the program, the chapter took requests for any favorites of the residents. Afterward, we all enjoyed local Indian food. What a great end to a great semester!

Fall Festival Bake Sale

2009-11-08T19:21:00.002-06:00

The Bake Sale was a success! All of the students, teachers, and parents went home with goodies for the weekend. All of the donated baked items were sold and we are one step closer to Albuquerque!

2009-10-13T11:45:00.000-05:00

Officers and Directors for the 2009-2010 school year.

President: Rebecca Wiitala

Vice-president: Hector Landa

Secretary/Treasurer: Jaime Jones

Fundraising: Angela Triandafillou

Piano Matchmaker: Jennifer Tripi

Publicity/Advertising: Andrea Isaacson

Community Outreach: Amy Seibert

Last Meeting of the Year

2009-05-10T10:38:00.000-05:00

Our last chapter meeting of the 2008-2009 academic year was held on Friday, May 2. It was nice to reflect on our achievements from this past year, as well as to start thinking about next year.

Speaking on behalf of the three 2008-2009 officers, we felt a rush of sentimentality as the meeting ended. Serving together has strengthened our friendship so much, and was a very special part of our lives this year. We will always remember serving together this year and look forward to the new officers continuing the strong MTNA tradition at OU!

Chapter of the Year and Atlanta

2009-05-10T10:25:00.000-05:00

The OU School of Music Collegiate Chapter of MTNA has been named the Benjamin Whitten Collegiate Chapter of the Year for 2008-2009! Our chapter advisors, Dr. Jane Magrath and Dr. Barbara Fast, were named chapter advisors of the year.

Several of our members were able to attend the national conference in Atlanta, where the awards were presented. There is an article about our chapter and these awards on the OU School of Music website: music.ou.edu.

We are so incredibly honored to receive these awards. MTNA is an amazing organization, with so many wonderful collegiate chapters across the country. We are very proud to have been recognized for the work that we did this past year.

Have a Heart Recital

2009-02-20T14:45:00.000-06:00

Last Friday was our chapter's first annual Have a Heart Recital. The Have a Heart title had two meanings. First, the recital was the day before Valentine's Day. Second, and more important, the recital was a canned food drive benefitting the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.
Our members performed intermediate level teaching literature and invited local piano students and their families to attend. Along with the program, an informational sheet with levels and publishers of pieces was distributed. We are so proud that the turnout was fantastic! Not only was there a large audience of local students, but we also collected one full bin of canned food to donate to needy families.
One special highlight of the recital was the participation of three students from the undergraduate Piano Pedagogy class. Since our chapter is comprised entirely of graduate students, we were especially excited to have these students join us!
A big thank you to everyone who participated, especially Nicole Biggs, our Community Outreach Director, for all her time and effort in making the Have a Heart Recital a success!

Holiday Recital

2009-01-22T07:19:00.000-06:00

Just before Winter Break, a group of our members performed Christmas music for residents of The Gardens at Rivermont, a senior living community in Norman. We had each chosen a selection of pieces (solos and duets) ahead of time, and planned to perform these recital-style. However, the recital ended up being less structured and more improvised, since the residents made several requests- including for us to sing! Gathering around the piano while one person played and the rest of us harmonized in parts was a real highlight! We even improvised arrangements of traditional carols requested by the residents when we did not have the music with us.
It was really illuminating that as classical pianists, we had our own preconceptions of what a Holiday Recital would entail. We signed up for specific pieces ahead of time, prepared these, and planned to perform them as such for the residents of The Gardens. However, afterwards, we realized that an improvised sing-a-long was probably even more enjoyable for the residents! Everyone enjoyed our playing and singing and we were so happy to be able to share music with them. We would definitely love to return to The Gardens at Rivermont in the future!

Fall Festival

2008-11-08T13:24:00.000-06:00

The OU SoM MTNA chapter recently helped the Norman Area Music Teachers Association (NAMTA) with their annual Fall Festival by monitoring and helping with the Kid's Fest area. Fall Festival brings approximately two hundred students to Catlett Music Center to audition. Students are allowed to audition within several categories including, piano solo, piano duet, violin, violin ensemble, and voice. Several students and teachers dressed up in costume for the event! We are privileged to work with the Norman Area Teachers and had a great time getting acquainted with the teachers and students! We also were able to raise some funds with our baked goods to help our members attend the National MTNA conference in Atlanta next year!
Here are a few snapshots of our adventures:

Donut Sale

2008-10-29T10:08:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday morning our chapter held a donut sale fundraiser in Catlett Music Center. We sold donuts, coffee, orange juice, and milk. Although the fundraiser wasn't as successful as we had hoped, we are still glad we tried it because we had always thought about doing some sort of food sale on a typical weekday in Catlett. Now we know approximately how many donuts we could probably sell if we ever did this again. Thanks to all the volunteers from our group who helped with this fundraiser!

Piano Pedagogy at OU

2008-09-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

Please take a moment to view the OU Piano Pedagogy website! Browse around and do not hesitate to contact the faculty members with questions. We would love to see you around our campus!

The Upcoming Year

2008-09-10T17:27:00.000-05:00

The 2008-2009 school year looks to be very promising for our collegiate chapter. We have elected new committee directors and look forward to many new projects! Among these we plan to do the following:

Work with the high school pianists in our community through a mentoring program
Continue to match pianos with students in need of an instrument through our Piano Matchmaker program
Hold an essay contest for area music students. The prize will be two tickets to see one of the many Oklahoma City Philharmonic guest pianists.
Hold a holiday recital at a local nursing home in conjunction with high school pianists

We plan to do no more than two fundraisers each semester, and planning is already under way. We will either do an on-campus pizza sale or donut sale, we will participate as ushers in the OU School of Music, and we also hope to assist as door monitors at the Norman Area Music Teacher Association's Fall Festival in October.

Monthly meetings will not only contain orders of business, but will also be a time for workshops to further our education as both pedagogues and students. We will hold a workshop on MTNA Certification, and we are looking into many other options including Alexander Technique and Doctoral presentations. It is definitely going to be an exciting year!

Welcome!

2008-09-09T16:52:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the University of Oklahoma School of Music (SoM) MTNA Collegiate Chapter blog! Thanks for stopping by. We are excited for the upcoming semester and year. There are many events in the works already and we look forward to sharing details in the coming weeks.

We recently had our first meeting of the year in which we elected new committee directors and discussed some new ideas. This year our president is Rachel Schmoyer, our vice president is Jyoti Hench, and our treasurer/secretary is Angie Moss.

Stop back by soon to catch up on the events in which our chapter is taking part, as well as to share some of your chapter's ideas with us!