Welcome

 

Dear Colleagues,

 

I am very pleased to be writing to you as President of this terrific organization that you and I belong.

First, I want to thank the very energetic Board members to give me the opportunity to serve as President. Ever since I moved to New Jersey four years ago, I have been very impressed with the dedicated board members and teachers who have sacrificially donated their endless hours to various events held throughout the year. NJMTA is an activity-driven organization with various auditions, festivals and competitions with large number of student participation. As far as I know, there are no other states that run events with over 1500 students participation!

The strength of NJMTA is very much indebted to many leaders in the past especially our immediate past president, Lillian Livingston. She gave us examples of what a true leader should be. I have personally witnessed her in many occasions as a tireless worker whose only interest is to serve others and to make NJMTA a better organization. She has also mentored so many young teachers to be involved in NJMTA. Her evermore positive attitude is what I most admired of.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have Diane Hou, our new President-Elect, who will be working side by side with me for the next two years. Diane agreed to return to the Board after stepping down as the Yearbook editor two years ago. She will bring the insight and managerial experience from the corporate world that she was a part of for many years to enrich our organization. She and her conference committee have organized an extraordinary program to our state conference on Nov. 21 and 22 at Rider University in Lawrenceville. This conference titled “Pathways to Romanticism” will stimulate everyone’s imagination and promised to be one not to be forgotten. Urge your colleagues, friends and your students and parents to attend. I promise they will gain a greater wealth of ideas and inspiration.

We have some other new members that have joined the Board and I want to welcome them:

Yelena Uzlaner-Masotti will be our new Membership Chair. This position was vacated in Nov. 2008. During the interim, Lillian stepped in and took charge of the task while serving as President. Thank you, Lillian!

We welcome Yvonne Chin who will be our new Newsletter editor. Thank you, Yvonne. We now can look forward to reading the ‘Three Quarter Times’ online. Do send her news items periodically so that we can constantly share information and your activities.

Rose McCathran has graciously accepted the position as our new Recording Secretary.

If you checked our website lately, you will notice that we do have a new Webmaster at work. Thanks to Heng-Tzu Lee who keeps us current and updated from time to time.

We want to express our special thanks to Elena Benedict, who served as the Chair for the Composer Commission Competition for many years with so much enthusiasm and fervor. Eunju Joung Kim has kindly accepted this new position with Elena assistance.

Deborah Gers, who has been instrumental in revising our bylaws to reflect the growth of NJMTA, agreed to be the Auditor of NJMTA.

The annual Children Helping Children Performathon continues to thrive under the leadership of Betty Stoloff, Chair of Arts Advocacy, raising $9000 for 3 locations of Ronald McDonald Houses in New Jersey this year. NJMTA was the first state that initiated a Performathon and the idea has been picked up by other states. Please encourage your students to participate in the 2010 event, which will take place on Feb. 20, and 21 at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

Mark your Calendars for Sept. 15 as the new deadline date for the Young Musicians Competition and Master Class audition for piano. It is also the deadline for MTNA online application.

 

Special thanks to Megan Register who served as Recording Secretary, Yearbook Editor and Chair of the Spring Piano Festival for the last years. She has contributed so much to the organization with her very calm demeanor and her very skillful organizational management. She often agreed to take on task above and beyond her duty. We will miss you, Megan! Grace Chang stepped down as the Spring Auditions/ Recitals Chairperson for the Princeton area and Chiung-Yin Cheng Liu have temporarily suspend her position as the Chairperson for the Monmouth County Spring Auditions/ Recitals. I applaud them both for running this ever-growing event from year to year. Their dedication and expertise to insure that all events proceed smoothly are keys to the success of the enormous annual event. We also thank their families for sacrificing their weekend days to help out at various tasks.

I wish you all a very successful musical year. May your passion and love for teaching continue to grow everyday.

I will look forward to seeing you at the Conference.

 

Sincerely,

Chiu-Ling Lin