Eastern Division.

The Eastern Division is planning for the January 2004 Conference and Competitions at West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown. Clinicians will be Molly Weaver and Connie Arrau Sturm, NCTM, of the WVU music faculty. Sedmara Rutstein, NCTM, artist teacher at the Oberlin Conservatory, also will perform.

The featured Eastern Division state for this issue is Massachusetts. Massachusetts MTA (MMTA) will host this year's Quad-State Conference at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Teachers from Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine will join their Massachusetts colleagues for an exciting weekend event. The conference, October 24-25, 2003, will include a special Friday evening concert by Bob Winter, pianist for the Boston Pops. The Boston Steinway dealer, M. Steinert & Sons, will be the host. The conference theme will focus on teaching younger students, and how to keep them interested, motivated and energized in their music studies. Saturday will feature a presentation by Susan Ogilvy, whose reputation for getting students to have fun with music is outstanding. MMTA board members will participate in one of Ogilvy's ensembles. The afternoon highlight will be a concert by the commissioned composers from the four states.

The annual Bay State Contest also was held at Berklee this past June. Winners from each division recorded their performances, which may be heard on the MMTA website www.mmta.net.

Three MMTA members, Michelle Gordon, George Litterst and Kathleen Maskell, were honored to be part of the technology team for the National Conference for Keyboard Pedagogy, August 7-9, 2003.

--Debra Ronning, NCTM

Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania