1st Wednesdays @ Beth El: Dr. Alyson Shirk and Katy Stevens
Join Katy and Alyson on a musical journey of friendship, celebrating the music of film and musical theater.
Dr. Alyson Shirk serves as Director of Arts for the Bryn Mawr School. Earning her doctorate in vocal performance from Shenandoah Conservatory in 2009, Alyson was awarded the Dean’s Graduate Scholar Award for excellence in scholarship for her dissertation “Mad Women in Opera: An Investigation of Madness and Selected Mad Scenes for Soprano”. In 2009, Alyson taught master classes and performed the Brahms’ Requiem with the Ho Chi Minh Symphony Orchestra in Vietnam. In 2010, she traveled to Buenos Aires to research and perform the music of Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino. Her Bryn Mawr and Children’s Chorus choirs have performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, The US State Department, and The Blair House. Most recently, Alyson’s choirs performed at the International Kodály Symposium in Budapest and Kecskemét, Hungary in 2013. In addition to her work as a regional choral clinician and adjudicator, Alyson serves as the Artistic Director of the American Kodály Children’s Chorus, founded in 2013 as an outreach of the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore.
Katy Stevens is a private music instructor and performer. She has been teaching privately for over 30 years, 20 of those in the Baltimore area. She runs a successful private piano and voice studio and teaches through the music school at the Bryn Mawr School.
Growing up in a musical family, Katy began performing at the age of three. She studied vocal performance at the University of Akron, and holds a degree in Worship Arts from West Coast Bible College and Seminary. She is active in the Baltimore-area worship community and is involved in other outreach through the non-profit organization, Somebody Cares Baltimore, of which her husband is the president and founder. In the summer of 2019, Katy had the privilege of singing the National Anthem at an Orioles game at Camden Yards. She has recently launched an online piano instruction course and sings in a women’s barbershop quartet.
Katy happily resides in Parkville with Matt, her husband of 27 years, three young adult sons, and three lovable dogs.