STEEL DRUMS
ANWAR GABRIEL MYRON OTTLEY, B.Mus., (organ) M.Mus. (conducting), Steel Drums, is a product of the Ottley Music School where he took piano lessons and music theory with his aunt, Nevilla Ottley since he was in elementary school. For four years, he conducted the 35-voice Black Student Union Chorale of Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, MD in command performances of music of Black Composers from the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic to the present day, a cappella or with symphony orchestra and/or with band. His first degree from Washington Adventist University is in organ performance, after switching from Music Education. Anwar Ottley joined the Ottley Music School faculty in the summer of 2004, teaching steel drums, after having taught it for two years before at Metropolitan Seventh-day Adventist Church, in the MSSO II as a teenager. His effective work with the youth and adults of the Ottley Music School camps has produced students who are excited about studying it privately in the school year. The summer 2006 voice, drama and dance camp students pans played for the opening of the University Town Center Towers, with then present (Ehrlich) and former (Glendenning) governors of the State of Maryland in attendance, as well as the Mayor of Hyattsville Bill Gardiner), and the County Executive of Prince George's County (Jack Johnson). He was the teacher of the pilot program in Prince George's County Public Schools, teaching the students of Paint Branch Elementary School in College Park at OMS. They now have incorporated that program as part of their core curriculum, being the first and to date, May 2008, the only school in the Prince George's Public School System to have the pans in their school. Besides teaching steel drums at the OMS, he has established an Ottley Music School Steel Ensemble that performed locally. Mr. Ottley graduated with his masters in conducting at Andrews University in May 2009. |
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