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Ginny Atherton, Music Director

Our Music Director is Ginny Atherton. Since childhood Ginny imagined herself conducting as well as performing on the flute. While in junior high school, she had a model symphony orchestra arranged on top of her phonograph and practiced conducting. Many of her favorite works to "conduct" were the Russian Romantics!

With some piano training as a child, in junior high she began learning the flute in her school music program...her first choice, violin, being unavailable as there were only band classes. Trumpet, Ginny's second choice, already had several players, so the band director entreated her to play the flute... for which he had only one player for grades 7 - 12! Actually, with the musical appetite of a potential conductor, Ginny embraced the flute as enthusiastically as she would have the violin or the trumpet.

School years were spent in various cities in upstate New York. Senior high school in Kenmore, NY brought the requirement that in order to participate in the orchestra, one must be studying with a private teacher. Along with many members of that outstanding orchestra, Ginny became a member of the newly formed Western New York Youth Orchestra, conducted by her own flute teacher, Robert W. Mols, at the University of Buffalo. Side-by-side events with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and later participation in three summers of the pre-professional orchestra at the Brevard, NC, Music Center, confirmed Ginny's ambition to work in orchestral music.

With degrees from the State University of New York, Fredonia and the University of Southern California Thorton School of Music and studies at Indiana University, she has also participated in extended summer sessionsfocusing on contemporary music at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and Oberlin Conservatory. Special courses and workshops supporting instruction in woodwind techniques, string pedagogy conducting and improvisation (Jazz, fiddle and contemporary) have provided specific enrichment to Ginny's ability to interact with students on all instruments and to lead them to explore a variety of genres. She plays trumpet as a second instrument.

In the mid 60's, Ginny was a Peace Corps Volunteer, assigned to assist in the development of the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Bolivia. She has taught all levels of instrumental music in communities as diverse as the inner city (Los Angeles, CA and Wilmington, DE) and to privileged students in public and private schools (Wilmington, DE, Devonshire, England, Malibu and La Canada Flintridge, CA.) In Delaware she conducted the Brandywine Pops Orchestra (amateurs) and the Harmony Street Camber Players (a student concerto orchestra). Whenever possible, she engages a composer to write for her students. She is on the faculty of Pasadena City College, teaches at the Southern California Suzuki Institute at Occidental College and maintains a private flute studio in La Crescenta.

Ginny has recently presented pedagogy workshops at the National Flute Association Convention and designed the Ensemble Program for the California Association of Professional Music Teachers (MTNA). She has developed a special interest in class/rehearsal management based upon yogic principles which are employed in Meremblum rehearsals.

Ginny's performance experience includes solo recital, chamber music, ballet, opera and symphony. She has also studied Indian classical music (mridungum and bansuri) and Sanskrit. In the 70's, Ginny co-founded and performed with the Deiaware Pro Musica, and designed chamber music programs for specific locations. Often the sites were of historical importance suggesting particular repertoire and instruments. During this period Ginny also performed on the Baroque (one-keyed wooden) flute. She has taught workshops on performance style at the Universities of Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware.

Ginny is member of the American Symphony Orchestra League, National Flute Association, Chamber Music America, Music Teachers National Association, Music Educators National Conference, International Association of Jazz Educators, American String Teachers Association, and the Suzuki Association of the Americas. A member of Local 47, she supports the ambitions of students aspiring to become professionals as well as educating those who will be amateurs or consumers of music.