Featured Artists and Presenters
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Marvin BlickenstaffMarvin Blickenstaff is known among piano teachers throughout the country for his teaching, lecturing, performing, and publishing. Currently he maintains a private studio in the Philadelphia area and teaches at The New School for Music Study in Princeton. Blickenstaff is the former Board President of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy and is on the Executive Planning Committee of the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. In 2007 the on-line journal Piano Pedagogy Forum published tributes to Blickenstaff honoring his contribution to piano teaching in America. Also in 2007 he was named Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He was honored in 2009 with MTNA’s highest honor, the MTNA Achievement Award, and was selected in 2013 by the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy for its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018 the New Jersey Music Teachers Association nominated him for an MTNA Fellowship and he was named 2018 Teacher of the Year by the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association.
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Philip AabergPhilip Aaberg, of Helena, Montana, is known worldwide for his compositions that evoke the spaciousness and beauty of the Western landscape. A Harvard graduate, courtesy of a Leonard Bernstein Scholarship, he has performed with the Boston Pops, Peter Gabriel, Elvin Bishop, and at the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival. He has toured solo in Europe and Japan and released twelve solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated “Live From Montana." He is also an Emmy nominee for “All-American Jazz” and for his score for “Class C:The Only Game in Town”. Recipient of a Montana Governor’s Award for the Arts, Aaberg was the 2011 recipient of the Artist’s Innovation Award, an honorary doctorate in music from Montana State University in 2013, and the 2015 Montana Governor’s Humanities Award.
www.sweetgrassmusic.com |
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Kenneth Christensen, NCTMKenneth Christensen, NCTM, has appeared as a soloist and collaborative artist throughout his home state of Montana as well as the United States, Europe and Asia. His international performances include collaboration with composers and conductors John Rutter and the late Sir Richard Wilcox in performances at Kings College Chapel Cambridge, England, and London’s Royal Albert Hall. His academic achievements include receiving the prestigious “Award in Excellence in Teaching” while serving on the faculty at the School of Music at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Mr. Christensen served as President for the Music Teachers National Association from 2013 to 2015 and received a Music Teachers National Association Foundation Fellow in the spring of 2017. Currently Mr. Christensen remains active as a performer and independent teacher of piano where his students continue to win state and regional competitions. In 2014 Mr. Christensen was awarded the Montana State Music Teachers Association “Teacher of the Year.” As a member of Music Teachers National Association Mr. Christensen travels the Pacific Northwest judging piano competitions as well as presenting workshops and master classes for students and teachers.
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Pete BolenbaughPete Bolenbaugh is the Assistant Director at Wise Wonders Children's Museum in Billings, MT. Along with his passion for science and hands-on learning experiences, he spends his free time playing in two local bands (Not Your Boyfriend's Band and The Always Be Creative) and embarrassing his children by breaking into song and attempting to turn every day into a real live musical. Pete developed an interest in music at a very early age. His grandfather, a luthier by hobby, gave him his first guitar at the age of four. He proceeded to learn by fire, trying to keep up with his uncles and their friends at family jam sessions. He has since spent the last 30+ years learning new instruments and styles of music, as well as writing and recording original music.
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