Steven's String Teaching Credentials

Steven earned a Bachelor's degree in Music Education in 1980 from Washburn University of Topeka, and completed a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting in 1982 at Northwestern University in Evanston IL. Steven has studied violin and viola with Alvin Pells, Cynthia Scully, Jack Herriman, Anne Mischakoff, and Hugh Brown, and string pedagogy with Tiberius Klausner and Merton Shatzkin. Greatly experienced as an orchestral musician, Steven has been a member of the Kansas City and Topeka Youth Symphonies, the Springfield MO Symphony, the Topeka Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Kansas City Civic Orchestra, the Overland Park Orchestra, and the Orquesta Mexicana de la Juventud in Mexico City, as well as many other orchestras.

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From 1987 to 2011 Steven was director of orchestras and instructor of music theory at Paseo Academy of Performing Arts and at the Kansas City Middle School of the Arts , teaching strings in grades 6 through 12. Under Steven's tutelage the Paseo Academy Chamber Orchestra was selected to perform at the 1998 Missouri Music Educators' Convention. Steven served as Kansas City Metro District No. 3 High School Orchestra Vice-President from 1996 to 1998.

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As a performer Steven appears frequently with the Silverwood Ensembles, playing violin and viola in quartets, trios, and duos for weddings, retirement home events, private parties, and other functions. Along with his wife, flutist Emily Smith, Steven was a featured performer in the Fall 2016 Ruel Joyce Recital Series at Johnson County Community College. Steven also performs regularly around the Kansas City area on violin, viola, and electric violin (in addition to woodwind instruments), in numerous classical and pop ensembles.

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