Margaret Hawkins, Choral Director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, will receive the String Academy of Wisconsin’s 1993 Performing Arts Leadership Award in recognition of her service to the arts in the greater Milwaukee area. The presentation will be made during the annual String Academy Scholarship Benefit Concert, which begins at 5:30 PM on Tuesday, May 18, in the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Fine Arts Recital Hall.
Milwaukee physician and arts supporter Edward Filmanowicz will present the award to Ms. Hawkins. Soprano Lee Dougherty (member of the UWM voice faculty) will perform with the String Academy Chamber Orchestra, James Przygocki, conductor). The concert will also feature solos by SAW students, including Katie Gorsuch and Kendra Kreutz, winners of the 1993 SAW Concerto Competition. Ms. Gorsuch will appear with the chamber orchestra in a performance of “Summer” from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. Ms. Kreutz win perform Vivaldi’s Cello Concerto in e minor.
Tickets may be reserved by calling 229-6121. The ticket price is $20 and includes admission to a buffet supper in honor of Ms. Hawkins in the UWM Fine Arts Gallery following the concert. Proceeds from the Scholarship Benefit Concert will be used to provide scholarships for deserving low-income children.
Past recipients of the Performing Arts Leadership Award include Edward Mumm, former concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Gerald Reiser, Chairman of Marquette Electronics Foundation.
Margaret Hawkins, one of America’s foremost choral conductors, is Choral Director of th e Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Director of Performance Activities at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She has prepared the choral forces of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra since 1969 and founded the 200 voice Milwaukee Symphony Chorus in 1976.
Ms. Hawkins is a regular guest conductor of the MSO and other orchestras, and is in demand throughout the country, as a master teacher and clinician. In 1991 she conducted performances of the Brahms Requiem in Philadelphia, and in 1989-1990 she became the first woman to lead the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (which appears with the MSO at the Marcus Amphitheatre on July 25). Engagements last summer included conducting Haydn’s “Lord Nelson Mass” at the Adirondack Festival of American Music in July, as well as a repeat performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus at the Ravinia Festival.
Margaret Hawkins has served for the past ten years on the board of directors of Chorus America and for eight years on various panels of the National Endowment for the Arts. She has received numerous awards and honors, including being named “Musician of the Year” twice by the Milwaukee Sentinel. As MSO Conductor Laureate Lukas Foss said of her, “Milwaukee has a few national treasures and Margaret Hawkins is one.”
From the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Compiled by Jim Olsen
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