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STATE LEVEL AWARDS

(Address to send these nominations or forms to is listed on each form or document.)

Andrea Meyers, Colorado ASTA 2012 Lifetime Service Award Recipient

Colorado native Andrea L. Meyers has more than thirty-six
years of experience as a professional music educator,
orchestra director, cellist, conductor, adjudicator, clinician, and
music advocate. Ms. Meyers received a Bachelor of Music
Education degree from the University of Northern Colorado
and earned her Master of Arts degree from the University of
Colorado at Denver in 1991. She began her teaching career
as the Director of Orchestras at Fairview High School in
Boulder in 1976. In the ensuing years, she served as Director
of Orchestras at Ponderosa High School and Douglas County
High School, as well as strings specialist at numerous
elementary and middle schools. Ms. Meyers retired from full-
time public school teaching as Director of Orchestras at Rock
Canyon High School in 2009.
Ms. Meyers is a former President of the Colorado American
String Teachers Association, Inc., Membership Chair, and
Denver Area Representative. She is currently the first National
ASTA Membership Chair, and former ASTA Member-at-
Large. She volunteers as the ColoradoASTA, Inc. National ASTA Solo Competition Chair, and the
Advisory Board of the Colorado Music Educators Association as the Membership Chair. In addition,
Meyers is a member of the National Council for Orchestra Music Education, NAƒME (formerly MENC)
and the NAƒME National Honors Orchestra Board. Her connection with the Douglas County School
District continues today through service on the Board of Directors, promoting elementary instrumental
music programs.
In 2005, Ms. Meyers was honored as the ColoradoASTA, Inc. Teacher of the Year. At the 2008
National ASTA Conference, she received the National ASTA Outstanding State Chapter
Leader Award. She has also presided and presented at CMEA and national ASTA conferences.
Ms. Meyers has adjudicated the Colorado West Performance Invitational and numerous other large
group/solo and ensemble contests. She has conducted at the CASTA Middle School String Camp,
the Honors Chamber Orchestra Festival at Fort Lewis College and many festivals and honor
orchestras throughout Colorado. Ms. Meyers was a featured conductor of the 2009 Alabama All State
Orchestra in Tuscaloosa.
As a cellist, Ms. Meyers has performed with the Boulder Philharmonic, Greeley Philharmonic, Littleton
Symphony Orchestra and currently with the Arapahoe Philharmonic and The Denver Pops Orchestra.
She participated and performed in the 1988 First World Cello Congress and the 2000 World Cello
Congress III.
Today Meyers maintains a busy and active career as a master teacher, musician, and
mentor. Though “retired”, she is sought for her magnetism, charisma, depth of experience and
positive energy. A strong advocate and proponent of the vitality and value of music education, is a
regular contributor to CMEA Colorado Music Educator Journal and the ColoradoASTA, Inc., String
Vibrations Newsletter. Through her representation of ASTA, CMEA, NAƒME and CHSAA on many
levels Ms. Meyers encourages members to be fine music education advocates, make beautiful music,
and take pride in the efforts and musicianship of colleagues and students throughout Colorado and
the U.S.

Stephanie Wallace, CASTA 2011 Lifetime Service Award Recipient
 

Stephanie Wallace began her teaching career during 1979, in Adams County District 12 Five-Star Schools. She has been teaching in Boulder Valley Schools since 1990, having worked in nineteen different elementary and middle schools. In 1995, she began team-teaching with her husband at Fairview High School, where she developed the chamber orchestra program. Together, Brett and Stephanie developed a “String Camp” mountain retreat where they regularly taught middle school students for over 20 years.

Together, they have taken various youth performing ensembles to California, Florida, the Bahamas, Austria, Belgium, Italy, England, France, Germany, and Holland. Ms Wallace and her husband Brett were the Music Directors and Conductors of the three Front Range Youth Symphony Orchestras for 16 years, having recently retired from those positions in the spring of 2007. Stephanie conducted the Concert Strings and Chamber Strings feeder orchestras, and also taught a week-long summer music camp for elementary through high school students at The Arvada Center for the Arts & Humanities for 16 years.

Both Ms Wallace’s middle school and high school ensembles have been selected for performances at CMEA. She has coordinated and hosted festivals for BVSD, guest-conducted and judged festivals for Jefferson County, Grand County and St. Vrain Valley School Districts, and conducted the All-State String Orchestra in 2003. Ms Wallace has regularly coached chamber ensembles, and started a guitar program at Casey Middle School. She has presented workshops for other teachers, and mentored C.U. practicum students, student teachers, and other teachers in Colorado.

Ms Wallace holds a Bachelor of Music Education Degree from the University of Colorado, having studied cello with Eugene Hilligoss and Jurgen DeLemos. A professional cellist, she has been a member of the Cameo String Quartet since 1981. She has performed with the Boulder Philharmonic and the Arvada Chamber Orchestras, as well as with various freelance and studio recording groups.

She and her husband Brett both share a love of chamber music, and hope to eventually host chamber music evenings in their home. They often perform together as a cello duo and as a quartet with their two daughters Lindsey and Robin, at First Presbyterian Church in Boulder. Ms. Wallace plans to stay active in the community, and return to private teaching in the near future. In addition, she and Brett look forward to traveling, starting new projects, and will resume performing on a regular basis.

Stephanie Wallace, 2011 Lifetime Service Award Recipient, left,
with Kim Watkins, Colorado ASTA President                                               Stephanie Wallace, 2011 Lifetime Service Award Recipient

James Mosby Bratton, CASTA 2010 Lifetime Service Award Recipient
To Be Awarded at the All State Orchestra Concert on February 13, 2010

James Mosby Bratton

Our 2010 Colorado American String Teachers Association Life Time Award Recipient is James Mosby Bratton, Professor Emeritus from the Lamont School of Music, at the University of Denver. Mr. Bratton was appointed to the faculty in 1957 and received full professor status in 1960. He retired in 1997, after forty-seven years of teaching at the University, and is still the University Organist, at the Evans’ Chapel starting his 52^nd year. For many years he was Choirmaster/Organist at the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and Organist/Director at Congregation Emanuel. He was the former Dean of the Denver Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.  He joined the AGO in 1946, while in Virginia. He’s a past president of the Reed Organ Society, an active member of the Organ Historical Society, the American Theater Organ Society, and the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors. His interest in reed organs started at eleven years of age, where learned the art of rebuilding, tuning, regulating, and making reeds. A Shenandoah Valley native, he lived near the Klann Pipe Organ Supply Company in Waynesboro, VA

Mr. Bratton got into the wonderful ASTA group to learn more about the beautiful c.1850’s French cello he inherited; it opened a whole new world for/to him.  At the Peabody, he studied with Senior and graduate students, ‘never getting good enough to be passed on to one of the cello Professors.’  I really didn’t practice for a long time and wasn’t until some years went by, that I started to study again, I’m going to get lessons started again, though I do practice and keep it in good tune.  I’ve even recently had my bows rehaired'.  All his instruments have lived their lives in Colorado. Also a harpist, he studied with Professor Joseph Pizzo, of the Baltimore and New York Symphony Orchestras and then later with Suzanne Davids at DU. It was a very happy time when he played with the Aurora Symphony Orchestra! After open heart-surgery, Mr. Bratton regrettably gave up his harp, gave all his music away, but now would love to own another and start up again!

Our distinguished honoree James Bratton holds a B.M; B.A.;  B.S.; M.A.;  M.M. and many hours toward a D.M.A. Mr. Bratton studied at John’s Hopkins University, Peabody Conservatory, University of Colorado, New College Oxford, England and in Paris. ' I'm hoping to resume study for my own enjoyment.'  He does play his cello every day... but says, ' I'm too old to be good enough to play in an orchestra again, but... the dream is still there! '  He just celebrated his eighty-first birthday.

Dr. Katharine Mason and Michael Schaefer
CASTA LifeTime Service Award Winners for 2009
Awards Presented at the 2009 Summer Conference Banquet

Dr. James Fittz, Outstanding Teacher 2011

Wes Kenney, Outstanding Teacher 2009

Wes Kenney is the 2007 grand prize winner of the Varna (Bulgaria) International Conducting Competition. He travelled back to Bulgaria in March 2008 for concerts in Vidin and to conduct La Traviata in Stara Zagora. Mr. Kenney is currently in his fifth season as Music Director of the Fort Collins Symphony, an orchestra that has experienced unprecedented growth in the number of concerts and size of budget over the past four seasons. In the summer of 2004 he was named to an additional post of Music Director of Opera Fort Collins helping that organization establish a full season of three productions a season. His initiation of a concert performance of Carmen as a community collaboration between the Fort Collins Symphony, Opera Fort Collins, and Colorado State University, earning him the title of the area's "musical ambassador."

Mr. Kenney is a past president of the Conductors Guild, a 2000 member service organization to the conducting profession. He currently is on the Guild’s advisory board. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and San Francisco State University. Additional studies include three years as a fellow at the Conductors Institute, several American Symphony Orchestra League and Conductors Guild Workshops, and the Sandpoint Festival. His teachers include Harold Farberman, Hans Beer, Gunther Schuller, Hans Swarovsky and Miltiardes Carides.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2008 HALL OF FAME RECIPIENTS

ELVA JEAN BOLIN and SUSAN DAY

Presentation of Hall of Fame Awards at CMEA, January 2008

Susan Day, recipient, Andrea Meyers, President of Colorado ASTA, and Elva Jean Bolin, recipient

        SUSAN DAY         

ELVA JEAN BOLIN with Andrea Meyers (left)

MRS. ELVA JEAN BOLIN

Music Teacher

Elva Bolin was born in Denver, Colorado. She has two brothers, Ray and Bernie. She attended Denver Public Schools and in 1971 graduated from Denver South High School seventeenth in a class of 722 students.

She attended the University of Denver on a full-tuition Honor’s Program academic scholarship. After graduating from the University of Denver with her Bachelor of Music Education degree in 1975, she began teaching music in the Denver Public Schools. In 1984, 1985, 1994, 1996 and 1997 she conducted the DPS Citywide Elementary Orchestra. She taught in DPS until 1998.

Elva served on the Design Advisory Committee for the new Harrington building, helping design the vocal music room and instrumental music room. In 1998 she was interviewed by Aimee Spohr for Channel 4’s Eye on Colorado program that featured the Colorado Youth Instrument Program which donated instruments for her students. That same year she was interviewed by Marc Shulgold for an article about instrumental music in public schools that appeared in the Rocky Mountain News Sunday Spotlight. She has been listed in Who’s Who in American Education since 1989.

Elva has taught music in Aurora Public Schools since 1998. She has mentored a number of music education students and beginning teachers. She serves on the APS Arts Curriculum Committee and the Aurora Cultural Arts Action Team (CAAT).

At the beginning of her third year at Jamaica Elementary School, the movie Music of the Heart came out. Principal, Harry Chan, saw an interview about the movie on a morning talk show. Soon they applied for and received a $10,000 grant from Texaco and the Jamaica Violin Program began.

In 2001, Elva received the Everyday Hero Award from Channel 7 and Toyota. One of her co-workers nominated her for doing the violin program. As a result of this award, Berger Funds gave Jamaica School twelve violins. Several individuals donated violins as well..

Elva started playing violin in the fifth grade. She was a member of the Denver Public Schools Citywide Orchestra from sixth to twelfth grade and a member of the Colorado All-State High School Orchestra from tenth to twelfth grade. In high school she started to give private lessons on the violin using the Suzuki Violin Method. Troy, one of her first students, started when he was four years old. He went on to the Curtis Institute of Music, the National Repertory Orchestra and is currently the Professor of Violin at Kobe University in Japan.

In fifth grade, Elva had the opportunity to learn Spanish. In both DPS and APS, she has had more and more Spanish-speaking students. She is able to teach fluently in Spanish, conference with Spanish-speaking parents and translate parent flyers into Spanish.

Elva is married to a wonderful man whom she met in college in piano class. They are both are members of Aurora First Presbyterian Church which is near her school. They participate actively in the choir there and are involved in the music ministry at Canterbury.

Her hobbies are quilting, counted cross stitch and needlepoint. She enjoys designing original patterns for these crafts. Her Purple Mountain Majesties quilt, based on the words to “America the Beautiful”, has been shown at the Aurora History Museum. This year she is donating a quilt “Colorado Rocky Mountains” to the CASTA basket for the ASTA National Conference.

Colorado ASTA, Inc.
Life Time Service Award
 

2011 Stephanie Wallace
2010  James Mosby Bratton
2009 Dr. Katharine Mason & Michael Schaefer
2008 Gerhard & Joann Wolter
2007 Carol Tarr
2006 Jim McNeal
2005 Larry Lashley
2004 Larry Overton
2003 Leonard Diggs
2002 Will Schwartz
2001 Tom & Barbara Humphrey
2000 Dan Giullian
1999 Vanda Skadden
1998 Steven McNeal
1997 Virgil Rosenberger



Colorado ASTA, Inc.
Outstanding String Teacher

2010  Margaret Miller
2009 Wes Kenney
2008 Campbell Harrison
2007 Pattie Nelson
2006 Andrea L. Meyers
2005 Nancy Allwein
2004 Becky Anderson
2003 Barbara Rino
2002 Cameron Law
2001 Judy Elgethun
2000 Susan Day
1999 Scott Betts
1998 Brett Wallace


Awarded National ASTA “Best Website” 2006  Linda Johnson

National ASTA “Member-at-Large” 2007  Dr. Katharine “Kip” Mason
2008-9  Andrea L. Meyers

Awarded National ASTA “Outstanding State Leader”
2008  Andrea L. Meyers

National Band Association “Citation of Excellence” 2006 - Dr. Jess Gerardi


CMEA “Hall of Fame”
1985 John T. Roberts*
1987 Eugene Hilligoss*, Byron Gillette
1989 John Cummins*
1992 Robert Hurrell
1993 Jess Gerardi
1994 Frank Montera
1996 Chuck Cassio*
1998 Don Shupe
1999 Larry Overton
2000 Kenneth G. Evans, Steven McNeal,
Howard Skinner
2006 Rebecca Anderson
2006 James McNeal
2008 Elva Jean Bolin, Susan Day

CMEA 25 Year Award Recipient
2007 Elva Jean Bolin
2008 Susan Day
2008 Michelle Ewer
2010 Ed Deepe