Mrs. MaryBeth Allen
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Mrs. Allen has a Bachelor’s Degree in music from Spring Arbor University with emphasis on voice, conducting, and saxophone. She is the music teacher at Heritage Christian Academy in Kalamazoo and has taught private music for 25 years. Lessons are out of her Mattawan/Almena area home. Beginning piano and saxophone lessons also available. She specializes in preparing students for events such as Solo & Ensemble festivals, auditions, and other performances.
Schedule and Fees Mrs. Allen follows a school-year schedule, (summer lessons also available) and lessons are not offered during days coinciding with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Break vacations. Lessons are for thirty minutes, once a week. Tuition is paid on a monthly basis the first lesson of each month (depending on the number of lessons in the month). Short term (preparing for an event) and long term (in depth technique) lessons available. Website: http://mballen.musicteachershelper.com |
Mrs. Elizabeth Cowan
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Education:
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Elizabeth Cowan has done additional study at Westminster Choir College and the Chautauqua Institute and has taught at Florida International University and the New World School of the Arts in Miami. Elizabeth is an established soloist and actress in the Kalamazoo area. She has performed as a soloist with the Kalamazoo Symphony and performs regularly at Dalton Recital Hall and at Miller Auditorium on the campus of Western Michigan University--where has has been on the voice faculty for 17 years. She has sung with opera companies across the United States, most notably Santa Fe Opera and Dallas Opera, and has been the featured singer in master classes for many famous teachers, including Robert Merrill, Margaret Harshaw, Martina Arroyo, Shirlee Emmons and Rosalind Elias. She was the 1994 Metropolitan District winner in Dallas, named the North Texas Singer of the Year, and was the featured recitalist for the National Association of Teachers of Singing convention at North Texas State University. A winner of the Wagner Society solo competition in Dallas, a Dallas Opera Guild career grant winner, and a concerto competition winner at SMU, she was also a finalist in the San Antonio Vocal competition and the D'Angelo vocal competition. An adjudicator for many major vocal competitions, her students have sung all over the world and have won major national and international singing competitions. Elizabeth is an active performer---both as a vocal soloist but also as a stage performer.
Elizabeth specializes in vocal technique, diction training, classical and musical theater training, and stage craft. Elizabeth is married to Dr. Scott Cowan, the chair of the Jazz Studies Department at WMU and has 3 children and numerous pets. Elizabeth teaches private voice lessons for serious students at her office at WMU or in her home office which is located in Mattawan. |
Dr. Ken Prewitt
Education:
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Ken Prewitt is the Voice Area Chair and Professor of Voice in the School of Music at Western Michigan University, where he teaches applied voice and Vocal Pedagogy. He previously taught at Emporia State University (Kansas), Lander University (South Carolina), and Bob Jones University (South Carolina). Prewitt received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in voice performance from the University of South Carolina, and Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees in voice performance from Bob Jones University. His distinguished teachers include Willis Patterson, Waldy Anderson, Glenda Maurice, Rachel Mathes, Richard Miller, Gene Ferguson, and coach Stephen Dubberly.
A tenor, Prewitt has sung major opera and oratorio roles with the Columbia Lyric Opera, Bob Jones Opera Association, Greenville (South Carolina) Chorale and Chamber Singers, Long Bay Symphony, Columbia Choral Society, Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium, Wichita Chamber Chorale, and Reno Choral Society. He has performed as an oratorio soloist in Bach's Magnificat, Bruckner's Te Deum, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Mozart's Solemn Vespers, and Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music. His stage experience includes roles in Andrea Chenier, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Die Fledermaus, Faust, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Rigoletto. He has presented solo recitals in Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and South Carolina, and in Mexico City, Mexico; Seoul, South Korea; and Pohang, South Korea. Prewitt has served as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, language coach, stage director, and music director during his career. From 2002-05, he conducted the AMPHION Men's Ensemble in concerts throughout Kansas and Missouri. He has given master classes at Anderson (South Carolina) College, Barton County (Kansas) Community College, Kansas State Univerity, Washburn University, Wichita State University, Bethel College (Kansas), North Greenville (South Carolina) University, Shorter College (Georgia) the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the National University of Mexico, and throughout Kazakhstan in the former Russian Conservatories. In the summer of 2013 he taught in Graz, Austria at the American Institute of Musical Studies. Prewitt has been a member of the National Association of Teachers for over thirty years, where he has served in various offices including auditions chair, host for state and regional auditions, vice president and president of state chapters in South Carolina, Michigan and Kansas. |