PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - Current Year

Address given by President Ann B. Stutes, Friday, January 28, 2011

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take
but by the moments that take our breath away. (Author Unknown)

Last night Dr. Christopher Smith, Associate Professor of Musicology at Texas Tech University, provided some powerful visuals of the West Texas region in his keynote address – Access, Advocacy, and Inclusivity: Campus Roles in Building Community. Since I am also from this region it thrills me that we can share those visuals as a starting point in our brief conversation this morning. The opening quote is my favorite and is placed in strategic places in both my office and my home. MOMENTS…let me tell you about a few of mine:

1. There is a phenomenon that occurs when traveling the back roads between the neighboring towns of Lubbock and Plainview – the actual roads you saw in the pictures we shared last night. Only on some very dark, clear nights when the atmospheric elements settle in precise alignment, you can see the lights from every small West Texas town across the horizon in a 360 degree circumference. There is a golden glow that hovers over the flat land and it is spellbinding. It only happens occasionally and when it does, when that MOMENT hits and I realize that it is happening, it is pure joy for me. I cannot wait to see if it is happening when traveling back and forth in the late-night hours. It is awesome and my response never fails to be both physical and mind-boggling.

2. Professor Smith discussed “vernacular music” and how we as music professionals function in the day-to-day world sharing our craft with others. I am a violist, theorist (two strikes against me!) and a church choir director. Our choir is very traditional and has about 30 members. We have a scholarship fund that provides a small stipend for several Wayland students to participate in the group. During a recent rehearsal I was attempting to get our men, most of who are 65 years and beyond, to understand and perform a syncopated section in an anthem. Purely by chance I did a good job of explaining the concept and we were soon singing with a suitably jazzy groove. I told the choir that we had just learned and performed “syncopation.” One of my tenors who has never formally studied music and who does not read a note of music asked out loud, “Did we really just DO SOME MUSIC THEORY?” Chris, one of our Wayland students in the tenor section, caught my eye and just beamed – he stared at me with a look of total understanding. He understood that we had just built a musical bridge that transformed how the choir felt about learning and performing. No lesson he would ever learn in a textbook or sitting in a classroom could teach him as much about being a music director than what he learned at that MOMENT – how to connect with others through music.

3. Last night we learned about Ivan and his pursuit of a collegiate music education as he traveled daily across the footbridge from Mexico to attend classes at UT Brownsville. When we heard him begin his performance and realized the significance of his talent and the impact the Clara Freshour Nelson Scholarship will have on him, it was our shared MOMENT. The most important thing we can take away from last night’s gathering is this: IT ALL MATTERS. Every time we make a special trip up to school to unlock doors, when we track down an extra role of toilet paper right before a concert so our audience can use the restroom, when we counsel tearful students, when we mentor frustrated faculty, or when we work with community lay musicians, it matters. Everything we do as music administrators – no matter how large or how small the endeavor – drives us toward these MOMENTS that we share with others along our journey and that ultimately enrich our lives and the lives of others. Sometimes we say we are in the “music-making business.” I like to think that we are in the “MOMENT-making business.” It just happens that we use music to make our moments. My challenge to you today is this:

1. SAVOR THE MOMENTS – in your hurry to move on to the next responsibility, do not let them pass you by.

2. SHARE THE MOMENTS with students, faculty, administrators, all those within your sphere of influence – this is how you tell our story which, I am certain we can all agree, has the power to unite and inspire.

Through our MOMENTS we can create our own unique pathway to Access, Advocacy & Inclusivity.

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - Previous Year

Address given by President Dr. Donald Balmos, Thursday, January 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Good evening and welcome to the 71st Annual Conference of the Texas Association of Music Schools.

First I want to thank Dr. James Lee, our executive director for all of his work on behalf of TAMS and, in particular, preparing for this conference and also our President-Elect, Dr. Ann Stutes for planning this year's conference.

We have several guests with us and I will attempt to identify several groups as we continue through the evening. First, I would like to introduce our friends from Steinway and ask the district representative of the Steinway Corporation in NY, Tommy Edds, to introduce the people at his table.

Representing the architectural firm of Pfluger and Associates we welcome Maria Coffee. Maria, I believe your firm specializes in the design of music and other performing arts facilities. We welcome you to our conference.

We also welcome new music executives to our conference. Do we have any who are new to our conference and/or new to music administration here in Texas?

I came to my first TAMS conference in 1993, and I remember sitting in a much smaller room. It wasn't a banquet setting like this but tables and chairs lined up in a classroom/lecture arrangement. I began looking at the program in anticipation of what I was going to learn about music administration. You may notice that the President of TAMS that year was Marvin Lamb. Here was responsible for inviting me and encouraging me to attend. He gave me valuable advice as I learned to transition from faculty to administrator. He offered two valuable and practical pieces of advice: 1) stay within your budget and, 2) keep your faculty happy. He also offered that my primary role as a music administrator would be to community the value of our art to the non-musician, both within the institution and out in the community. Each subsequent year, since 1993, I puruse the program in and spend some time reflecting on the list of past presidents. Some of our past leadership is in the room with us now, many or not. You probably recognize names who have established legacies for themselves as music administrators of their institutions.

Let's take a brief trip back to 1938 at a meeting of the Texas Music Teachers' Association (I am taking this information from our TAMS web site). The meeting was held in Waco, Texas. I am guessing that the meeting was held either on the Baylor University campus, or perhaps at the old Raleigh Hotel. My guess is that there wasn't much of a budget for the conference and they probably did not have such a nice banquet available to them like we currently have before us.


The meeting, held on June 15, was chaired by Dr. William Jones. After his opening remarks, he called on Dean Henry E. Meyer, who outlined the need for some form of conference for teachers of music on the college level. The roll at that meeting was signed by the following people:

Dr. William Jones, Carl Wiessman, and Daisy Polk of Texas State College for Women

Dean Henry Meyer of Southwestern University

Dr. E. W. Doty, The University of Texas

Roxy Grove, Robert (Pop) Hopkins, and Robert Markhum of Baylor University

Sister Mary Laurence of Incarnate Word College

Sister Amabilis and Sister M. Elaine of Our Lady of the Lake College

Dr. Walter Gilewicz of Mary Hardin-Baylor College

Lillian Reese of the Austin Conservatory of Music

Lota Spell of the Texas School of Fine Arts in Austin

After this meeting, there was an interesting timeline, a break of several months, you see because these early pioneers were busy people, dealing with the day-to-day challenges of keeping their music departments together, probably wearing more hats than we do currently, with little time to form a new organization like TAMS. Two letters were mailed to various colleges and universities. One on November 1 and another on November 19 about a meeting to be held at the Dallas Athletic Club on November 25. That second letter was sent only6 days prior to the meeting. The purpose of the called meeting was to discuss establishing an organization. Representatives from 25 Texas schools of music arrived and unanimously approved the formation of the Texas Association of Music Schools.

Just over a year later the first annual convention of TAMS was held on December 1, 1939 at Our Lady of the Lake College in San Antonio. The charter institutional members of our organization were:

Senior Colleges: Baylor University, College of Arts and Industries, Hardin-Simons University, Incarnate Word College, Mary Hardin-Baylor College, McMurry College, North Texas State Teachers College, Our Lady of the Lake College, Sam Houston State Teachers College, Southern Methodist University, Southwast Texas State Teachers College, Southwestern University, Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College, Sul Ross State Teachers College, Texas Christian University, Texas State College for Women, Texas Technological College, Texas Wesleyan College, West Texas State Teachers College.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Junior Colleges: Hardin Junior College, Wichita Falls; Hockaday Institute of Music in Dallas.

Conservatories: Amarillo Musical Arts Conservatory, Fort Worth Conservatory, Houston Conservatory, and the Texas School of Fine Arts, Austin.

Each year, music administrators have opportunities to join many professional organizations both individually and institutionally. The list continues to grow and we have to make decisions on what best serves us, our departments, and our institution. In 1938, there were fewer options. Indeed various institutions that trained musicians were in their infancy and just beginning to produce US-trained composers, performers, and music educators. At the time of the 1938 TMTA conference, we had MTNA, organized in 1876: MENC, organized in 1907; TMEA and TBA, both organized in 1920: NASM, organized in 1924. Our parent organization, TMTA, can trace its roots back to 1886.

Following the organization of TAMS, there was a rapid growth of musical organizations. In fact, according to Homer Ulrich, in his book: “A Centennial History of Music Teachers National Association”, at the 1948 MTNA convention in Chicago, the following organizations met jointly with MTNA. They included NASM, AMS, MLA, NATS, the American String Teachers Association, the Accordian Teachers Guild, the National Association for Opera, and Phi Mu Alpha. And then, in 1950, we have records that ACDA and the National Music Therapy Association were organized at an MTNA meeting.

Over the years TAMS has functioned in the spirit exhibited at that first meeting in 1938 to deal with the challenges of providing music experiences in high education. Through research, discussion, debate, and even lobbying with organizations like THECB, TAMS has dealt with issues like: The Role of Music in General Education
Appropriate Teaching Loads For Private Music Instructors, Ensemble Directors, and Class Piano Instructors
Appropriate and Competitive Pay for Adjunct Music Instructors
Transferability of Music Courses
The Challenge of Securing and Keeping Good Professional-Level Accompanists for Music Students
Specific Evaluation Instruments and Student Evaluation Instruments for Music Instructors
Pedagogical Issues Related to Music Theory, Music History and Literature
The Challenges of Piano Labs and Midi Labs
Dealing with Schools or Departments of Education
Fund Raising and Development for the Music Unit
The Recruitment and Hiring of New Music Faculty
The 120 Hour Rule

Our organization has witnessed presentations on technology and will most likely face future issues like:
Online instruction,
SLOs
EEOs
Accountability

Significant accomplishments that this organization should applaud include:

The TAMS Code of Ethics. A document that is a part of our Constitution and By-Laws and serves as a set of guidelines for all institutions and all faculty to use in recruiting music students throughout our state. This code of ethics has been the foundation of our organization and makes a strong statement to students, parents, and many others outside of our music group. It has served us well.

Our College Night at TMEA. This year we have 70 schools that will be exhibiting and will give the top high school music students in our state an opportunity to learn about the many opportunities they may have to continue their music making experiences. They receive information and meet representatives of colleges and universities. This experience will allow students and their parents to make educated decisions regarding higher education.

The Music Field of Study. This project was a lengthy process to develop a commonly agreed upon group of music courses that students could take and have accepted at any state funded school in Texas. TAMS was the leader and served an important role in meetings with officials at THECB. The committee represented a wide diversity of universities and community colleges from broad geographical areas of the state. Every state school in Texas was given the opportunity prior to the FOS being adopted as law by THECB. Throughout the process, TAMS was the leader.

Now we find ourselves here tonight celebrating a new chapter for this organization and recognizing a gracious benefactor and three outstanding students of music. We celebrate the first awards from the Clara Freshour Nelson Scholarship Fund. First I would like to recognize Dr. Joe Stuessy and ask him to introduce the guests at his table.

Elizabeth, we do appreciate the interest and support of your family in the art of music and the trust you have placed in this organization to administer this fund. We take it very seriously.

We would not be at this point tonight if it had not been for a group of TAMS past-presidents who I drafted to help initiate this program. I would like to thank:

Dr. Joe Stuessy
Dr. Will May
Dr. Cheryl Rogers

And then, our first scholarship committee, that reviewed the many applications, listened to recordings, and made the tough decisions of selecting our first scholarship recipients: This committee consisted of three past presidents, Joe Stuessy, Will May, Cheryl Rogers, along with our President-Elect, Dr. Ann Stutes, the director of our State Institutions, Bill Ballenger, along with your current President. And, all of this would not have been possible without the able assistance of our Executive Director, Jim Lee.

Now, let's meet and hear from our scholarship recipients.

First, I would like to introduce Dr. Sam Holland, the Director ad interim of the Music Division at Southern Methodist University who will introduce his guests and our first performer.

Next, I will introduce Dr. Marylyn Wright, the Coordinator of the Music Department at Trinity Valley Community College, who will introduce her table guests and our second scholarship recipient.

And finally, Bill Ballenger, the Director of the School of Music at Texas Tech.

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