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Dr. Mary Crowell lives with her husband, Wesley, and their son, Simon, in Athens, Alabama. She has taught piano and composition for more than fifteen years. Mary is so much fun! She has a beautiful, expressive voice, and is a skilled songwriter. Mary plays the piano and clarinet beautifully and has been a friend of Gwen, Brenda and Teresa since January of 2001. As a new, (but returning) resident of north Alabama, Mary currently teaches music appreciation, class piano, and private piano lessons at Calhoun Community College in Decatur, Alabama. She also teaches yoga at the Athens-Limestone Wellness Center. Mary loves playing Rachmaninov, Gershwin, Bach, training Shotokan and Wado Ryu karate, practicing yoga, gardening, and gaming with good friends. Mary has a B.A. in piano performance from Huntingdon College, a M.M. in musicology from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and a D.M.A. in music composition --- also from the University of Alabama. While acquiring these degrees she accompanied ballet classes (and still twitches when she hears "Let's go. Five, six, se-ven, eight!"), helped organize receptions and run concerts as a house manager, graded many music appreciation and history papers, and taught freshman music theory, ear training, and sight singing. She also snuck around and performed jazz whenever her teachers weren't looking. Mary was introduced to filk music (and subsequently Three Weird Sisters) by Karen Murphy and John Brewer, who paid her way and drove her to her first filk convention -- GaFilk 2001. And now people cannot keep her away with sticks. She's written several torchy songs (Magnus Retail, and Oh Milo); blues songs (Legolas and Page Not Found Blues); and some that defy description (The Song Will Tell Me True). She enjoys making lead sheets for the GaFilk Songbook and is having a good time learning the ins and outs of the latest incarnation of Finale -- Finale 2004.
More recently Mary played concerts at Confluence 2003, TorCon 2003, and GaFilk 2004. She was toastmistress for GaFilk in 2004 as well. She was nominated for a Pegasus Award in the category, Best Performer, in 2003. Her piece, Poison Ivy, an octet for flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, french horn, trumpet, and trombone was performed at the UAH Local Composers Concert in March of 2004. In August, 2004, Mary accepted the invitation to join Three Weird Sisters and looks forward a long and happy collaboration with the band. She is currently in post-production on her solo CD.
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