Northeast Michigan Oral History and Historic Photograph Archive

MaryAnn Hubbard Interview

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Interview Part 2: Interview Part 2
Transcription: to me one at a time - they're, I'm contracted by the parents and they come to me one at a time and we work on flute techniques and things about music that they wouldn't get from their regular band classes in school and um, we do recitals and we do performances and I try to keep them busy with performances because I just think there's something within people that makes them competitive towards each other sometimes, but I like them to be competitive towards themselves. So I try and motivate them with their performances, not with being better than this person, but rather with what they are performing and we're performing a lot of small groups and as solos. They go to festivals during the school year through the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, and that they do through their school, but I prepare them for that, and that's a good motivation effort for them, but I think just as well as that are the opportunities they have to perform in recitals in town for their peers and for their parents and their family and their friends and that, and we do a lot of that. The biggest one that I do during the school year is called "Flute and Friends", and we do that in the fall, and that's where we have many, many different people - including Marlo Broad, by the way, who's been involved in Flute and Friends for a few years now - um, everything that we do has a flute or flutes in it, but it also has another person that plays another instrument or sings or dances with the flutes or does a narration with a narrated story. It's just a lot of variety but it all has to be premised on the fact that every act is a different musician, not just a flute player, so, um, I get the variety that way but my students seem to really like doing that. CK. Sounds fun, mixes it up . . . MAH. They meet people that they didn't know had this talent and, um, yeah, I think that's a lot of fun for them. CK. Did you start that? The Flute and Friends? MAH. I did. I did. This year will be the 7th one. We have it every year. CK. This question, I don't know that . . . as I was writing it, I was thinking you could apply it to so many different areas, but the question is, when should students start playing instruments? I think, ideally, is there a time . . .? MAH. That's a good question and the answers are very varied - it depends on what instrument you're talking about. Piano players usually start when they're quite young, there's a very, very good method - methods, many methods for very, very young children to begin, it's a reading thing as well as it is a physical thing, putting your actual hands on the piano. Um, there's a wonderful program for young, young children to begin violin, called the Suzuki program, CK. I've heard of that . . . MAH. . . . and it takes into account the fact that they need tiny instruments because their hands are tiny, their arms are tiny and their wrists don't work the way a grown-up's wrist does, and then it goes through the different stages of growth of a child. There's also a Suzuki flute method, but I'm not trained in the Suzuki flute method, it involves different instruments, too. But for a wind, a child that's going to play a wind instrument, I think it's very important that their teeth be in, and CK. Ok MAH. . . . they be formed so that their mouth is going to be the way it's going to kind of be when they're an adult. I think that's very important, and I don't like to start flutists before fifth grade. I have started some before fifth grade and it's always been a very slow start, but it works. But I think fifth grade is the best time for a flute player,a wind player anyway. CK. Their teeth are in . . . MAH. And they can do what they have to do with muscles, facial muscles. And their hands are fine by that time. Their hands are at the growth period where they need to have them, so yeah.. CK. That's revealing, I had no idea that question would give me that answer. That's good. I want to go back, because we talked about the private lessons, then there was also the Blue Lakes and Resurrection. Would you talk about those? MAH. Sure. Resurrection is a very special school that we have here in Alpena. It's about five years old, I think, and maybe a little bit more than that, not sure on my dates. But, anyway, it is funded by . . . it's the outreach, the musical outreach that Resurrection Lutheran Church does for the community and Julie Wood is the director of that school, and there are five of us right now that are teaching classes. I'm the flute teacher and I also teach wind instruments at the beginning/intermediate level, but I wouldn't do that at the advanced level. We have two gentlemen who teach guitar, and two who teach voice and piano. So we have those instruments covered right now in our school of music. CK. Where is it housed? MAH. Resurrection Lutheran Church is at the corner of Grant and Brook Street, which is also the Tripoint Church, they share the back, near where the back entrance to the mall is, just down a block from there and Tripoint Church and Resurrection Lutheran share the building and that's where it's housed. We give private lessons there, and we have recitals twice a year and we do performances at the Culligan Plaza in the summer, which I have not been able to do any of because I've been involved in other out of town events. CK. Is there a focus on church music? MAH. No. No, no. CK. It's wide open? MAH. I'm the same teacher that I am with other students - they get the same method books and, no, there's not a focus, it's just being funded and encouraged by that church CK. Excellent. MAH. . . . as their outreach to the community. One of their outreaches to the community - they do a lot for the community. But I like it because, I mean I love it, because it's so different than any other place I've taught before. It has guitar players and it has vocalists and vocalists who are also wonderful accompanists. And so there's accompanists there, there's somebody to sing to do something with as a vocalist and there's also guitar players and they have a band called Music For You and sometimes I get to play with their band and I think that's so much fun, because it's just so different for me, I'm so classically trained, so that . . . CK. It's so good to know that's available, too. MAH. And we would love to have other teachers in our faculty, but we just wait. CK. Make it happen as it goes. Ok. And . . . Blue Lake? MAH. Blue Lake- Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. That is in Twin Lakes, Michigan, which is near Muskegon. Michigan's very fortunate to have two top-notch music camps, summer music camps in the state of Michigan, both over on the west side of Michigan and I became involved with Blue Lake over twenty years ago, as my father was involved there and so I came to visit him and see what he was doing there - he was a conductor. And I got to know some of the people and then pretty soon they were asking me if I would like to apply and do some things, and I did, and I was accepted, and I started out at Blue Lake as teaching the bands - they have, every two weeks they have enough kids there for four or five bands, and orchestras and choirs, but I was in the band department, and I was directing bands for six years and then finally I thought I wanted to try teaching flute. And so I started asking them to let me know if a flute vacancy came up, and after a while a flute vacancy came up and I auditioned for it, and was accepted, and so I've been teaching flute ever since. CK. Ok. MAH. In flute classes, instead of having the full band rehearsal, we have just small groups of flutists who are there to learn techniques that are unique to the instrument. So . . . CK. So is it a certain time of year? MAH. Yeah, it's in the summer. CK. Is it a summer camp, or do you just teach in the summer? MAH. It's a summer camp, yeah. And they do, before camp begins, and after camp ends, they do other things, like Suzuki violin classes, and adult chamber ensemble classes, but I only teach during the actual camp. And it's an eight week camp, I don't teach all eight weeks, I usually teach just two weeks of the summer. I just got back from that, as a matter of fact. And so, yeah, I like it, it's just very different than what you do in public schools or at the college. CK. Yeah, it's kind of fascinating, because it seems like you've got your hand in a lot of different areas. MAH. Yeah, I'm lucky that way. CK. You are a performer - how does your time spent performing compare with your time spent teaching? MAH. Well, that's a good question, because I think people think, "oh, wow, now that you're not teaching, you have all this time to practice, and actually I have to practice so much more, I have to spend so much more time now because it's when you're teaching you tend to do things that you've done before, use CK. You know the program. MAH. You know what's coming next and you know how to, what piece of music would be good for this group and what piece of music might be good for that group, and you, there's a lot of effort behind the scenes and a lot of work behind the scenes, but with performing, I just find, as you noted just a bit ago, I am doing so many things, I'm like performing with the orchestra and I have that to . . . I'm still getting ready for a concert that's the day after tomorrow, and I just got back from Blue Lake, and I had four bands, four flute sections from four bands, and I had all that music to learn, because I can't teach it unless I know what I'm teaching, you know I have to - there is an awful, awful lot of work to it. But I really enjoy it, it's so much different work than what I have done my entire career that I enjoy the performing part of it. I'm having a really good time with that right now. CK. Good. That was the next question - do you prefer one over the other? MAH. Well, I wouldn't want to do without my private teaching for Resurrection and other private students that I have that are not Resurrection students. I wouldn't want to do without that and I wouldn't want to do without the performing, so I can't really say that I have a preference, no. CK. Ok. So, would you please touch on some of your collaborations - I have note of the Windsong Flute Quartet, MAH. Oh, yes. CK. Quintelo Sonare . . . MAH. Quinteto Sonare CK. Ok, Quinteto Sonare, the Alpena Civic Theatre, Besser Chorus, and the Alpena Symphony Orchestra. MAH. Ok, alright, well, let's start with, um, and one that you didn't mention was the Arioso Trio, which was one of the first chamber ensembles that I started outside of the college, and this is two ladies who I had met at the college through the chamber ensemble, and we wanted to get together and create a group that could play at weddings, and so we did. And we called the group the Arioso Trio - I was the flutist, and we had Liz Nicholson played viola and Sally Vince played cello. Sally still lives in Alpena, but Liz Nicholson has moved a few years ago. And so we played a lot of chamber music for things other than, we ended up doing things other than weddings. We played at dinners and receptions, and things like that. So, we had a good time together, but we are no longer together because Liz moved and it's
Creators: Cindy Kus, Interviewer; MaryAnn Hubbard
, Interviewee
Media Type: Audio
Item Type: Interviews
Description: Mary Ann Hubbard talks about her role as an music educator and performer. She has taught music at ACC, Blue Lakes Fine Art Camp, Resurrection Lutheran Church School of Music and privately. MaryAnn performs in the Alpena Symphony Orchestra, The Windsong Quartet and organizes the annual "Flute and Friends" concert.
Place of Publication: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library
Date of Original: August 2015
Date Of Event: 2001-2015
Playing Time: 00:58:22
Subject(s): Flutes
Music education
Music ensembles
Musicians
Pianos
Personal Name(s): Hubbard, MaryAnn
Corporate Name(s): Wind Song Flute ; Flute and Friends
Collection: Musicians of Northeast Michigan
Language of Item: English
Copyright Statement: Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Copyright Date: 2015
Copyright Holder: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Library
Recommended Citation: In Line- Hubbard (2015)
Reference- Hubbard, M. (2015, August 10)http://www.nemoha.org/3235928/data?n=1
Contact: Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library
Email:specialcollections@alpenalibrary.org
Website:
https://www.alpenalibrary.org

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Transcription: Cindy Kus

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