Crane Alumni Board Honors Marion L. Gordon Akpata '61 with Music Teaching Award

Related Media

L to R: President Kristin Esterberg, Helen M. Hosmer Excellence in Music Teaching Award recipient Marion Gordon Akpata ’61 and Julia E. Crane Alumni Association President Ralph Hastings '70.

POTSDAM, NY (07/23/2015)(readMedia)-- The SUNY Potsdam Julia E. Crane Alumni Association recently honored Marion L. Gordon Akpata, a member of the Class of 1961, with the 2015 Helen M. Hosmer Excellence in Music Teaching Award, at the College's annual Reunion Weekend.

The Helen M. Hosmer Excellence in Music Teaching Award is presented each year to an alumnus or alumna in public school music education who has demonstrated exemplary service in any of the areas of choral, instrumental or general music education. Akpata was honored for her outstanding global career as a music educator.

Marion Akpata's impressive career as a music educator spans six decades and multiple continents. Fueled by her belief that "music can do what many politicians are unable to do -- to make the world a better place," she has left a permanent mark on thousands of students, in both the U.S. and Africa.

Akpata obtained a bachelor's degree in music education from The Crane School of Music in 1961, where she studied under Helen Hosmer. She went on to obtain a Master of Music degree in performance from Michigan State University, where she met her husband Solomon, a native of Nigeria. She and her husband have lived in Africa off and on since 1974, while maintaining a home in her birthplace of New York City. Throughout her career, Akpata has operated her own music studio teaching piano and theory, and has served as a music educator in both the U.S. and Africa.

In 2005, Akpata was offered the position of director of the new MUSON School of Music in Nigeria, where she was charged with building the school from the ground up, to establish a diploma program (which is equivalent to a U.S. high school degree). Accepting the challenge, she used her recollections of her Crane curriculum and facilities to establish the MUSON School, which is the only school in Nigeria teaching music at the diploma level. She continues in this role today.

Under her expert guidance and vision, the school has become recognized internationally, and in 2010, the MUSON Choir was selected as the only choral group from Africa to perform at the world conference of the International Society for Music Education in Beijing, China. Akpata's all-African program was the rave and delight of audiences, and the pride of the Nigerian Embassy, which gave her the opportunity to perform in China two months later to help celebrate Nigeria's 50th independence anniversary.

Akpata credits her life's work of using music as a way to transform young lives to the inspiration given to her by her teachers and mentors at Potsdam, including Helen Hosmer, Mary English, Brock McElheran and Art Frackenpohl. Today, that legacy has come full circle, as Crane recently welcomed its first student from MUSON.

For more information about SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music, visit www.potsdam.edu/crane.

Founded in 1816, and located on the outskirts of the beautiful Adirondack Park, The State University of New York at Potsdam is one of America's first 50 colleges. SUNY Potsdam currently enrolls approximately 4,300 undergraduate and graduate students. Home to the world-renowned Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam is known for its handcrafted education, challenging liberal arts and sciences core, excellence in teacher training and leadership in the performing and visual arts. Empowered by a culture of creativity, the campus community recently launched Take the Lead: The Campaign for Potsdam, which aims to raise $32 million by the College's bicentennial in 2016.

###