Director Biographies
In 2001, Stella Hastings was newly
appointed as the Artistic Director and Conductor of
the Southeast Kansas Symphony. Prior to her appointment as Assistant Professor at
Pittsburg State University, Mrs. Hastings was the conductor of the
Pittsburg State
University Chamber Orchestra and was on faculty at
Crowder College.
A native of Brazil, Mrs. Hastings is an extremely versatile musician bringing a vast array
of musical experiences to the Pittsburg community. Professor Hastings' experiences
range from conducting large orchestral and choral works with professional symphony
musicians to being named Artistic Director for the Austin Boys Choir. Stella
maintains an active professional career as a conductor and vocalist on local
and national levels. Currently, Professor Hastings is the Assistant Conductor for
the New Texas Music Works and the
Victoria Bach Festival. She also performs
regularly as a member of the critically acclaimed choral ensemble,
Conspirare Chorus, under the direction of
Craig Hella Johnson.
Mrs. Hastings holds degrees
from the University of Kentucky and the
University of Texas at Austin. Her studies
have also included work at the Aspen
Music Festival and various master class performances, most recently for
cellist / conductor, Lynn
Harrell. At present, Stella is completing work on her doctoral coursework at
the University of Texas at Austin.
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Susan Marchant earned her degrees
in the area of organ performance. A native of Buffalo, New York, she received her
undergraduate training at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, then earned
MM, MMA, and DMA degrees at Yale University. She has been a member of the PSU
faculty since 1979, and her teaching duties here have included the areas of applied
organ and harpsichord as well as music theory and literature.
An active keyboard
performer, she has been presented on a number of prominent recital series across
the country and has performed at a national convention of the Organ Historical
Society. In June, 1995, she was a featured artist at the Region VI convention of
the American Guild of Organists, where she presented
a performance of Bach's Clavierübung, Part III.
She has also served as harpsichordist and co-director of the Early Music Consort
of Kansas City, a period-instrument ensemble. On the campus of Pittsburg State, she guided the project
that resulted in the University's acquisition of the
Fisk Opus 106 pipe organ, an
instrument that has been widely praised for its excellence.
Dr. Marchant's interest in choral conducting was sparked by her extensive work
with Daniel
Moe at Oberlin. She has served as Director of Choral Activities at Pittsburg
State since 1988. The PSU Choirs have been featured at several state conventions
of the Kansas Music Educators Association
(KMEA),
most recently in February, 2002, and they also maintain an active schedule of on-campus
performances and annual touring throughout the region. Biennial spring tours take
the ensembles to various parts of the country. Among the recent highlights of such
tours have been performances in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville,
Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Montreal, and various venues throughout Southern
California.
Additionally, Dr. Marchant holds the position of director of music for Pittsburg's
First United Methodist Church. This large congregation has earned a regional reputation
for the quality of its music program. Its adult choir was chosen, through a national
audition process, to perform at the 1992 General Conference of the United Methodist
Church held in Louisville. Among this group's other activities was an English tour,
a trip that included choral performances in Wesley's Chapel as well as Norwich and
Gloucester Cathedrals, and organ recitals for Ms. Marchant in Southwark Cathedral
and St. Botolph's, Aldgate.
An active member of a number of professional organizations, she has served on
the State Boards of KMEA and KsACDA
and is a past dean of both the Ozark and the
Southeast Kansas Chapters of the AGO.
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Dr. Carolann Martin was Musical
Director and Conductor of the Southeast Kansas
Symphony Orchestra and the Southeast Kansas String Orchestra. She is also a Professor
of Music at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas. She has conducted
orchestras in many states throughout the United States of America as well as in
England and South America. She conducted the
Bournemouth Sinfonietta in Bournemouth,
England, UK, and produced a CD of orchestral works by American women composers
called "Journeys" which was
widely acclaimed and reviewed in the press. The album
also included one work recorded with the Arioso Chamber Orchestra in Hartford,
Connecticut. This CD was played on National Public Radio in the USA as well as on
many radio stations throughout the nation. She was featured twice in Audio Magazine
and was the subject of an hour-long interview with Studs Terkel in Chicago's WFMT.
Dr. Martin was the first woman ever to conduct the National Orchestra in Paraguay,
the Orquesta Sinfonica de la Ciudad de Asuncion. She has conducted on four concerts
with that orchestra was invited to return summer of 2001. She also conducted
a concert with the National Youth Orchestra of Paraguay.
Dr. Martin was winner of the
National Adult Conducting Competition in 1980. She
was the first woman ever to win or reach the finals in that contest. She conducted
several performances of Tchaikovsky's complete "Nutcracker" ballet with the
Houston Civic Ballet and the Victoria Symphony
in Texas. She was Assistant Conductor two years at the
Eastern Music Festival in
Greensboro, North Carolina. Her conducting teachers have included Max Rudolph,
Otto Werner-Mueller, Harold Farberman, and Elizabeth Green.
Dr. Martin is also an accomplished cellist and teacher of cello and bass. Her
cello instructors include Gorden Epperson, Janos Starker, Bernard Greenhouse,
and Frank Miller. She was principal cellist with the
Chicago Chamber Orchestra,
the Chicago Civic Orchestra and the Sioux
City Symphony in Iowa. She also performed
professionally with symphony orchestras in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma), Columbus (Ohio),
Norfolk (Virginia), and Tucson (Arizona.) She currently plays with the North Arkansas
Symphony in Fayetteville and has played with the
Springfield Symphony in Missouri.
She is a member of the Pittsburg State University Faculty String Quartet.
Her education includes Bachelor's Degree in Music from
Oklahoma City University,
Master of Arts from
Ohio State University and
Doctor of Musical Arts degree with a double emphasis on cello performance and conducting
from Arizona University.
She has had further study at Indiana
University and at numerous workshops and clinics.
Dr. Martin is listed in the "International Who's Who of Music," the "World's Who's
Who of Women," the "Who's Who of American Women" and others.
Carlton
McCreery currently serves as director of orchestral studies at the University of
Alabama and performs with the internationally acclaimed Cadek Trio. In addition,
he is the principal conductor of the Repertory Symphony Orchestra at the Brevard (N.C.)
Music Center and principal cellist of the center's Festival Orchestra during the summers.
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Walter Osadchuk was born on December
24, 1924, at Hamtranak Michigan, and attended the Hamtranak public schools. He was
graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, receiving a bachelor's
and master's degree in music. In World War II he performed with an Army Air Force
Band in the Philippines.
He began teaching in Pittsburg in 1952 and served as orchestra director, instructor
of cello, and upper and lower brass. While in Pittsburg, he founded the Southeastern Kansas
Youth Orchestra and was a cellist in the Resident String Quartet.
Dr. Walter McCray was the second director
of the Department of Music at
Pittsburg State University and served in that capacity from September 1914
to August 1946. He died on December 5, 1959.
McCray was a native of Kansas and a 1924 graduate of the American
Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and a 1931 graduate of the Columbia School
of Music, also in Chicago. He was a student of Herman Belstedt, a premier
cornet soloist, bandmaster, and composer. McCray also studied with Carl
Busch, J. F. King, and Lenore Scott in Chicago, and with Harbard Basse at
the Conservatory of Music in Stockholm, Sweden.
McCray's teaching experience included one year, 1899-1900, as director
of Music in the Reno County Community Normal and High School in Nickerson,
Kansas, and two years, 1901-1903, as head of the band department and teacher
at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas.
From 1904-1920 he was conductor of McCray's Concert Band and gained wide
experience as conductor of choral societies, operas, and orchestras, and
as supervisor of school music.
In 1914 McCray came to Pittsburg State University, known then as the
State Manual Training Normal School, as professor and director of the
Department of Music. In the spring of 1915 he inaugurated an annual music
festival for students in secondary education, the first undertaking of its
type in the institutions of higher learning in Kansas.
Under McCray's direction, each year from 1915 to 1946 the Music
Department of Pittsburg State University produced Handel's oratorio, "The
Messiah," with assistance from guest performers and community members.
More than twenty other major musical works were produced under McCray's
direction during those years. McCray retired from the University in
September 1947. For further information see also John K. Sehnert, "Walter
McCray and the Music Department at Pittsburg State University,"
(Unpublished master's thesis, 1991).
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During the years 1917 through
1919, the orchestra doubled in size to 24 members under the direction of
Miss Gabriella Campbell, a music graduate from the Teachers college at Cape Girardeau,
Missouri.
Miss Winona McLatchey directed
the orchestra for its first two years with approximately twelve musicians under
her direction. Miss McLatchey was a graduate of the Washburn music department
and had continued her studies at Columbia university.
