Gloriana Sewell

B. A. in Piano

Licensed Kindermusik Educator

Gloriana Sewell started piano instruction at the age of seven with Marilyn Grupp, trained at the Juilliard School of Music. During her eleven years of study with Miss Grupp she performed in studio recitals in Steinway Hall, Knabe Hall, Judson Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City and entered National Guild Auditions in the New York City center. In 1965 she won the Music Education League piano competition and performed in Town Hall in New York City.

Mrs. Sewell gained accompanying experience starting in 7th grade choir in junior high school and also accompanied extensively for both congregational and solo singing in church. In high school, she accompanied for both general and specialized choirs, played piano in the jazz band and was the accompanist for the New York State All-State Sectional Chorus in 1965. She was chosen to perform a concerto with the Huntington Philharmonia through a school competition in 1966. She took three years of music theory in high school and wrote two acts of an original opera that was performed by her classmates and a solo piano piece that she performed at her graduation ceremony. She was the recipient of the Magna Cum Laude Musicae Award in her senior class of over 600 students and graduated Valedictorian of the Class of 1966 from Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, Long Island.

Mrs. Sewell received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in piano from Bob Jones University in South Carolina. She studied with Laurence Morton, chairman of the piano department. She presented her senior recital, performed on the university radio station and Vespers programs, was a finalist in the commencement piano competition and earned the National Guild Collegiate Diploma. She also won first place in the South Carolina Music Teachers Concerto Competition and performed a concerto with the Charleston Symphony. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and third in her class in 1970.

From 1970-71 Mrs. Sewell studied privately with Reginald Stewart, retired head of piano from the Peabody Conservatory and Resident Artist at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. From 1976-78 she studied piano with Phyllis Clark at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

From 1975-78 she studied the Suzuki approach at the Ithaca University of New York summer institutes with Carole Bigler and Valery Lloyd-Watts, and from 1979-81 she took Dalcroze Eurhythmics in the Ithaca summer education programs with Jack Stevenson. She continued studying the Suzuki method at the Kingston, Ontario summer institutes and in the Greater Philadelphia Suzuki workshop program, including workshops with Bruce Anderson and Haruko Kataoka. She continues her studies through various teacher workshops and training sessions at the Westminster Choir College Summer Studies program. She has taken Kindermusik Village, Kindermusik Beginnings (currently revised as Kindermusik Our Time), Growing With Kindermusik (currently revised as Kindermusik Imagine That!), Kindermusik for the Young Child, additional Dalcroze Eurhythmics with Thomas Parente and Keyboard Technology. She took Improvisation and Music Learning and classes in Learning Styles at the Westminster Saturday Seminars. From 1989-1990 for about a year she observed Harvey Wedeen, chairman of the piano department at Temple University teach her daughter, Keren Ligowski, an advanced high school pianist at the time.

In 1983, she joined the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association and the Music Teachers National Association. In the local chapter, she served as co-chair of the Hannah Young Playathon, as Vice-President and head of the scholarship committee during 1989-91, and as President of the chapter during 1991-93. From 1989-91 and 1993-94, she was chairperson of the local Dorothy Sutton Festival. She has presented workshops and lectures for the PMTA on group piano and composition, Suzuki piano and running a successful music studio. She has given classes for children in Dalcroze Eurhythmics and choirchimes at Suzuki Workshops and summer institutes. In the spring of 1997, she and her daughter designed and ran a Music Festival for LVPMTA including a variety of workshops for piano and strings.

In 1989 she was voted PMTA Teacher of the Year, and in 1997 was elected Second Vice-President and Convention Chairperson of PMTA. In 1998 and 1999 she organized the PMTA State Conventions at West Chester University and Indiana University of PA. From 1999-2001, Mrs. Sewell served as President-Elect and Competitions Chair for PMTA, and from 2001-2003 as President of PMTA. In addition to her officer duties, she wrote levels 7 and 8 of the Dorothy Sutton Theory piano tests. In 2003 Mrs. Sewell received the Distinguished Service Award from PMTA and entered her two year term as Immediate Past President.

Mrs. Sewell has had over one hundred Superior Plus winners in the local Achievement Awards Auditions of the LVPMTA, over twenty Superior Plus Five year Plaque winners and the first and second Superior Plus Ten Year Plaque winners, and numerous gold medal winners in the PMTA Dorothy Sutton Festival. Her students have earned first, second, and third place in the MTNA Baldwin Junior High Keyboard State Competition and honorable mention in the thirteen state Eastern Division, and many have won first, second and third place or honorable mention in the elementary, junior and high school MTNA Composition Contest at the state level. In the Eastern Division Composition Competition of the MTNA, in 1993 she had an elementary first place winner, in 1993, 1995 and 2001 a high school first place winner, in 1996 a junior high honorable mention, in 2002 an elementary honorable mention and in 2003 a junior honorable mention composition winner. In 2000, she had a state high school piano Yamaha second place winner, and in 2002, she had a state first place Yamaha winner.

In 2001 and 2002 she had junior high and high school first and second place winners in the PMTA Jacobs Music Chamber Music Competition. Her piano students played with violin and cello in piano trios. In 2003 she had two students receive honorable mention in the high school division of the new Keystone State Piano Competition.

Mrs. Sewell also has had numerous five though nine year National winners, and several ten year Paderewski winners in the auditions of the National Piano Teachers Guild, many first, second and third place winners in the Perkasie Women¹s Club Piano Competition of the Pennridge School District, two first place winners and two runners-up in the Allentown Symphony Voorhees Concerto Competition, one second place and four first place winners in the Frank Chesebro Memorial Scholarship Competition of the LVPMTA, and two winners of the Bart Pitman Memorial Scholarship of the Delaware Valley Music Club.

Mrs. Sewell is the accompanist for her church choir. Each summer she and her daughter plan and teach a three day choir retreat for the choir members at the church's retreat center in the Pocono Mountains. The classes include theory, ear training, solfege, eurhythmics, voice instruction, rehearsal and performance.

Mrs. Sewell, with her daughter, Keren Ligowski, a graduate of the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University, currently maintain a studio of close to 100 students in Milford Square, Pennsylvania. The studio offers Suzuki piano for beginning, intermediate and advanced piano students, a Kindermusik program of Village, Our Time and Imagine That! for students ages newborn to 5 years and a keyboard lab for adults. She is a member of Kindermusik International, the Suzuki Association of the Americas, the Greater Philadelphia Suzuki Association, the National Guild of Piano Teachers and the Dalcroze Society. She is nationally certified by the MTNA. Starting in 1998, Mrs. Sewell has been elected each year to Marquis Who's Who of American Women and in 2003 to Who's Who in America.

Mrs. Sewell lives in Milford Square with her husband, Gene. She has two grown children, daughter, Keren Ligowski and son, Daniel, and four grandsons, Elijah, and Gabriel, Asa and Tristan.