Apr 30, 2004 3 min read

CONNELLSVILLE – A program focusing on the music of George Gershwin will be presented for the Mozart Music Club at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday in the sanctuary at Wesley United Methodist Church. The church is located on South Pittsburgh Street in Connellsville. The public is invited. There is no charge, however, donations to the club will be accepted.

Several area musicians will participate. They are soprano, Sheryl Nagy; tenor, Merle Stutzman; on woodwinds, Dane Shultz; and the Fay-West Brass, directed by Chris Hornick.

Performers in the brass ensemble are trumpets, Don Stoner and Pat Stefano; tuba, Paul Hammaker; French horn and baritone horn, Chris Hornick.

Nagy is a Connellsville High School graduate where she was active in musical productions. She is organist and choir director at the First Christian Church in Connellsville, teaches music privately and is currently studying liturgical music at Seton Hill College.

Stutzman is choral director at Connellsville Senior High School where he has produced and directed 34 musicals, the last of which was the show “Pinnie.” He is also choral director at the Mount Pleasant Church of God.

Stutzman has been a member of the Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and the Mendelssohn Choir. He has served as guest conductor for the Connellsville Thanksgiving Festival of Choirs for more than 10 years.

He is a member of the Pennsylvania Music Educators’ Association and Music Educators’ National Conference. He has been chosen to serve on the Pennsylvania Board of Directors for the American Choral Directors’ Association. During the years, his choral students and choirs have received many accolades and merits of distinction.

Hornick is conductor of bands at Connellsville Junior High East. He is active in the Pennsylvania Music Educators’ Association and Phi Beta Mu, which is an international bandmaster’s fraternity. He has served as conductor in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

His bands have received many band awards, including numerous superior rates at PMEA adjudication festivals. In addition, “Jazz East,” the school’s jazz ensemble, has been named the most promising ensemble at the California University of Pennsylvania Jazz Experience.

Within the Fay-West Brass Quintet, Pat Stefano heads Stefano Printing in Dunbar; Don Stoner teachers instrumental music in the Southmoreland School District; Paul Hammaker teachers tuba privately in the Syria Shrine Band of Pittsburgh; and Maureen Shirer is a member of the Scottdale Band and teaches privately.

Gershwin is best known for his jazz compositions, such as “Rhapsody in Blue” and “American in Paris.” He was an American and a pianist. He wrote music primarily for Broadway, the voice and piano. The folk opera, “Porgy and Bess” was written shortly before his untimely death in 1937 at the age of 39.

Entrance to the church can be made from South Pittsburgh Street or through the back red door entrance.