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Myra Brooks-Turner
is an educator, an award-winning composer, professional pianist and
freelance writer. Her column “Composer’s Corner”
appears in each edition of the WFMC Junior Keynotes Magazine
with one of her original compositions. She is a writer of research
articles and Pupil Saver columns for Clavier Magazine.
Having started
musical training at The Juilliard School in New York City at age
twelve, she holds bachelors and masters honors degrees with piano,
theory and composition from Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
Texas. A professional composer and musical director in Dallas, Myra
wrote TV commercials and directed recording sessions. Her post
graduate study in piano performance was with Italian Maestro Paul
Vellucci in Dallas, Texas, a descendant student of
Frèdèric Chopin.
Writing and
producing three musicals while at Southern Methodist University, she
served as Composer-In-Residence for Birmingham Children’s
Theatre, writing and directing six more stage musicals. She is editor
of the TFMC State Piano Competition Bulletin in which nine of
her piano solos appear as required materials for The Women
Composers’ Category.
Myra has taught at
Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia, Maryville College of
Performing Arts and The University of Tennessee in Knoxville. A
professional pianist of Classical repertoire and jazz improvisations,
Myra is a frequent guest artist in the area. Owner and creative
entity of MBT Productions, she also owns and operates The Myra
Brooks-Turner Studio of Music in Knoxville, Tennessee where she
teaches voice, piano and composition. Myra has two concert
performance groups associated with her teaching studio, The Beethoven
Society and The Chopin Society and seven concerts per year.
Myra is a
recipient of the Award of Merit from the Tennessee Arts Commission as
“an outstanding member of the cultural force of the State of
Tennessee who has helped to nurture and develop the arts in Tennessee.”
A text book writer
of Les Gens, Les Endroits et Les Choses, Myra is
Chairman of the Ossoli Circle Language Department and French Instructor.
Her collection of
piano improvisations Musical Moods has just been released by Schaum
Publications, Inc. Six other piano works are published by FJH Music
Company, Inc.
A vocal coach as
well as a church Minister of Music for many years, Myra publishes her
repertory series of art songs entitled Suddenly My Heart Sings,
some of which are listed on required selections in major audition manuals.
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