Studio fellowship winner

American Music Teacher, June-July, 2003

Klondike Steadman of Georgetown, Texas, is the recipient of the second MTNA Studio Fellowship Award. The award, in the amount of $3,000, is made possible by the MTNA FOUNDATION. Klondike was selected from a group of more than thirty music teachers who applied for the award.

The MTNA Studio Fellowship Award Program was established to help music teachers develop and enhance their newly established studios. The award is presented to the candidate who most clearly demonstrates a commitment to the music teaching profession. The MTNA FOUNDATION'S MarySue Harris Endowment Fund provides the prize money.

Steadman has a thriving guitar studio in Austin that he plans to expand into a private music school under the name "Joyful Sounds School of Music" in August.

A nationally recognized performer, Steadman has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Santa Barbara and Austin. He holds a B.M. degree in guitar from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.M. degree from the University of Texas, where he studied with Adam Holzman. In 2002 Klondike became the first person to receive a D.M.A. degree in classical guitar performance from The University of Texas at Austin (UTA).

Klondike served as president of the Austin Classical Guitar Society from 1999 to 2001, during which time he founded the Educational Outreach Program to provide free guitar lessons to low-income students. He has taught for UTA and Huston-Tillotson College in Austin and currently is on the faculty at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Steadman has been awarded several important honors, including first prizes at the 1997 Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Artist Guitar Competition; The 1996 University of Texas Concerto Competition and the 1994 University of California, Santa Barbara Concerto Competition; and third prize at the Portland International Guitar Competition. In addition, he has received numerous academic scholarships and awards.

Judges for the MTNA Studio Fellowship Award Program were Robert Duke, University of Texas professor; Marienne Uszler, NCTM, former editor of Piano & Keyboard magazine; and Joanne Smith, NCTM, University of Michigan professor emerita and the MTNA 2002 Teacher of the Year.