Mark Miller - President
Mark Miller was a 1995 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Rural Residencies grant, and has been performing and organizing musical events in Mount Vernon and the northeast Texas region for the past ten years. He is concertmaster of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, and performs with the Fort Worth Symphony. Since 1997 he has produced The Color of Sound, a series of chamber music concerts underwritten by the Music Department of Texas A&M University-Commerce. Together with his wife, violist Ute Miller, he has performed in the violin/viola ensemble Duo Renard, whose recordings can be purchased at http://www.cdbaby.com/duorenard1 and http://www.cdbaby.com/duorenard2
Steven Harlos - Vice-President
A professional pianist and composer with a very diverse background, Steven Harlos is equally at home in the classical and popular music field. He has collaborated with numerous artists of international stature as accompanist and as a jazz pianist. Steve currently serves as staff keyboardist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and is coordinator of piano and collaborative piano at the University of North Texas in Denton.
Carol Harlos - Secretary
In great demand as a freelance cellist, Carol Harlos performs with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and numerous other ensembles in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and maintains a private teaching studio.
Ute Miller - Treasurer
Ute Miller is principal violist of the East Texas Symphony and plays with the Fort Worth and Dallas Symphony Orchestras. She performs with her husband Mark Miller in the violin-viola ensemble Duo Renard (CD's available at http://www.cdbaby.com/duorenard1 and http://www.cdbaby.com/duorenard2), and has been bringing concerts of chamber music to Mount Vernon and the region since 1995, when she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Rural Residencies grant. In addition to playing with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, she served for seven years as assistant principal violist of the Gürzenich Orchester/Cologne Philharmonic, and for eight years as principal violist of the Dallas Opera Orchestra.
Lillie Bush-Reves - Director
Among the charter members of MVM, Ms. Bush now brings her 30 plus years of journalism and marketing experience to the organization’s board of directors. Ms. Bush is employed as editor of the Mount Vernon Optic-Herald. She is a native of Mount Vernon. She is a 1976 graduate of the Nikon School of Photography – Dallas. She was named Journalist of the Year by the North and East Texas Press Association in 2000. Ms. Bush is chairman of the Mount Vernon Main Street Alliance and vice-chairman of the City’s Landmark Commission. She is on the county appointed Franklin County Historical Commission Board of Directors. Ms. Bush has worked actively with Boy Scouts of America for more than 20 years, and as a director and/or officer of the Franklin County Historical Association for more than 10 years. She is a member of the Franklin County Arts Alliance, Franklin County Genealogical Society and Friends of the Library. A Lay Eucharistic Minister with the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas for more than 20 years, Ms. Bush serves Trinity Parish of Northeast Texas. Ms. Bush and her husband of more than 13 years, Nathan Reves, have three children, and five grandchildren.
Andrew Daniel - Director
Hailed by the German press as a “gifted musician of the highest order” and recognized as a premiere artist of his generation with several top prizes in competitions, Andrew Daniel has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe. After completing his Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California in 1992, he was offered a European tour under the auspices of the Andres Segovia Institute. Settling in Germany in 1992, Andrew founded Duo Grazioso with a flutist from the Hamburg Opera and was a frequent soloist with Musica Vitae, Sweden’s most distinguished chamber group. Andrew has appeared as a guest soloist in numerous festivals and with many orchestras, and has appeared on several live radio programs, including his Eastern European debut aired over Polish radio. Andrew Daniel has been on the faculty of Northeast Texas Community College since 2001 where he teaches music and humanities; he is also on the faculty of Dallas Baptist University where he teaches guitar and Medieval/Renaissance history. Currently in the final stages of his Ph.D. in musicology/theory, Andrew’s research interests include music and identity, mission music of pre-1800 Latin America, as well as strategies for deconstructing and reorienting the musicological canon.
Trice Lawrence - Director
Mr. Lawrence lives with his wife Pat in Sulphur Springs. He is a retired Texas Licensed Professional Real Estate Inspector and holds an MBA from Webster College and a BA from the University of Maryland. Mr. Lawrence is also retired from the United States Air Force where he commanded several organizations and later served at the National Security Agency as an Intelligence Briefing Officer for Presidents, Congress and the Secretary of Defense. He is currently active in several volunteer organizations and serves on the Board of Directors of the Rotary Club of Sulphur Springs and the Friends of the Sulphur Springs Library. In Houston he served on the Board of Directors of the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Greater Houston. He also taped a weekly radio show and described performances by the Alley Theatre and The Hobby Center for Performing Arts and the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo for Houston Taping for the Blind.
Debbie Ragsdale - Director
Debbie Ragsdale is principal flutist in the East Texas Symphony Orchestra and associate professor of flute at Collin County Community College. She is also serving President of the Board of the McKinney Musical Arts Society of McKinney, TX.
David Stinson - Director
David Stinson grew up in Mount Vernon, graduating from high school there in l958. He earned a degree in music from UT Austin, but never pursued a career in that field. Some years later, he received another degree in nursing and practiced that profession for many years in San Antonio, working first as a psychiatric nurse and later as a consultant. He retired in 2005, and returned to Mount Vernon. He now lives a rather quiet life, spending most of his days drawing, reading, listening to music and tending to his two dogs, Willie and Lady.