National Association Names Hwalek Music Teacher of the Year
Contact: Ginger Hwalek, 581-1246; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — Ginger Yang Hwalek, a music instructor in the UMaine School ofPerforming Arts’ Music Division and long time piano teacher andaccompanist in the Bangor area, recently was named the 2006 Teacher ofthe Year by one of the largest music teachers organizations in thenation.
The award from the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) isgranted to a person who has gone beyond the call of duty to exemplifyexcellence in music teaching. Criteria includes maintaining asuccessful music studio, upholding high professional standards by beingan MTNA Nationally Certified Teacher of Music and being involved in theMTNA at state, division and national levels.
The association is a professional organization with 24,000 members whoteach in homes, professional studios, conservatories, colleges anduniversities. Although the membership is primarily piano teachers, theMTNA also attracts strings, brass, woodwinds and voice teachers.
Hwalek says she was unaware she’d been nominated for the MTNA award.
“I was in shock,” she says. “Never in a million years would I haveimagined it. To me, this is like the Oscar for piano teaching. This isvery special because it’s my peers” who made the selection.
The Bangor resident will receive the award at the association’snational conference in Austin, Texas on March 29. UMaine faculty andfriends plan to celebrate with Hwalek at a public reception Feb. 24from 4-6 p.m. in University Club at Fogler Library.
Hwalek currently serves as the MTNA National Senior CompetitionCoordinator. She has held a number of offices within the associationsince 1982, including association president and board member. She alsowas the association’s Eastern Division president from 1998 to 2000 andpreviously the president-elect.
More locally, Hwalek has been site coordinator and adjudicator forstudent evaluations for many years in Orono, elsewhere in Maine, and inNew Hampshire and Rochester, N.Y. She has organized and conducted atseveral piano “monster concerts” in New Hampshire and Vermont, hastaught in Michigan and has been music director for the MacPherson(Kansas) Symphony Orchestra and the Central Maine String Orchestra.
Hwalek, who was raised in South Bend, Ind., has taught private pianolessons and held studio recitals in the Bangor area since moving toMaine in 1982. Her students have been selected to participate inprestigious chamber music programs in Blue Hill, Rockport and Portlandand have won the Arcady Music Society’s Student Competition11 times.Hwalek was the Arcady Music Society’s Teacher of the Year Award winnerin 1993.
At UMaine, Hwalek has taught piano classes, music history, tonalcounterpoint and analytical orchestration. She took over the chambermusic program here in 1999 and currently directs UMaine’s Maine SummerYouth Music program.
Hwalek has been a professional accompanist in the Bangor area androutinely accompanies at student and faculty recitals on and offcampus. She regularly collaborates with professor and soprano NancyEllen Ogle of the music division faculty, with whom she has performedand recorded three CDs of contemporary American art songs under theCapstone Records label.
In spite of a busy professional schedule, Hwalek has supported her16-year-old son’s soccer team as a team parent and she currently helpscoordinate their snack shack. She and her husband John Hwalek, anassociate professor of chemical engineering, have hosted American FieldService foreign exchange students from Greenland, Hong Kong, Thailandand Italy. The Hwaleks also have an 18-year-old daughter.
Hwalek says she immerses herself in teaching in so many venues becauseshe is enthusiastic about seeing people improve their piano skills andmusic appreciation.
“I love students at any level,” she says. “I guess I love people. I think that altruism is what drives me.”
Stuart Marrs, chair of the music division of the School of PerformingArts, congratulates Hwalek. “We feel proud and honored to have withinour ranks a faculty member who has received this prestigious nationalaward,” he says.