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A concert of American music will be performed by faculty members from East Central University and the University of Central Oklahoma at 7:30 p.m. April 12 [THURSDAY] at the Ada Arts & Heritage Center, 14th and Rennie.
Dr. Starla Hibler, pianist and professor of music at ECU; Theodora Morris, violinist and adjunct instructor of violin and recorder at UCO and Rose State College; and Dr. Ralph Morris, violist and director of UCO’s Symphony Orchestra, will play works by Aaron Copland, Samuel Gardner and Rebecca Clarke. Admission is free.
Starla Hibler has taught at ECU since 1991. She earned doctoral and master’s degrees in piano performance from the University of North Texas and a bachelor of music degree from Illinois Wesleyan University. She also studied at the Vienna Conservatory.
Hibler was recognized as the Oklahoma Federation of Music Clubs’ 2009 Teacher of the Year and the Ada Arts Council’s 2001 Outstanding Adan in the Arts. She serves as artist-in-residence each summer at the Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony’s Piano and Strings Camp in Arkansas. She also is organist/choirmaster for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and performs nationally as a soloist and collaborative artist.
Theodora Morris is a member of the UCO Faculty String Quartet and has performed chamber music throughout Oklahoma, the Southwest, Thailand and Germany. She has been a featured soloist with the Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Community Orchestra, the Jubilee Community Orchestra of Ashville, N.C., the UCO Symphony, the UCO Chamber Orchestra and the Thai National Symphony in Bangkok, Thailand. During the summers, she serves on the faculty of the UCO Chamber Music Camp.
She received diplomas in violin and recorder from the Hochschule fur Musik in her native Vienna, Austria. She taught strings and recorder in Vienna public schools for 10 years and performed regularly with the Capella Academica Wien, the Stadtmusik Wien, the orchestras of the Wiener Volksoper and Theater an der Wien and the Mozart Oper Salzburg.
In 1984, she moved to Arizona and studied violin and string pedagogy at Arizona State University. She has been a member of the Sun City (Ariz.) Symphony, the Lawton Philharmonic, the Enid Symphony and has served as concertmaster of the Oklahoma City Community Orchestra.
Dr. Ralph Morris came to UCO in 1991 and is the former director of the School of Music. He teaches viola and chamber music and is a member of the UCO Faculty String Quartet.
He holds a bachelor of music degree from Texas Christian University and a master of music degree and a doctorate in musical arts from Arizona State University. He also studied at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna. While living in Austria for eight years, he specialized in the performance of Baroque and Classical music, performing with the Capella Academica Wien and the Wiener Barock Solisten in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
He also performed throughout Europe and Japan as a member of the orchestras of the Wiener Volksoper, the Theater an der Wien and the Mozart Oper Salzburg. He has conducted the UCO Chamber Orchestra in New York City, Vienna, Austria, and Beijing, China.