Sixty-third Annual Conference

November 2-4, 2023
Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC

South Carolina MTNA Performance Competitions Will Be Live.

Registration Deadline: September 13, 2023, 3:00 pm.  Eastern Time.

To view and download the SCMTA 63rd Annual Conference schedule, click here.

To view and download the map of the Claflin campus, click here.

To view and download written driving directions to Claflin campus, click here.


Parking and Shuttle Service

For conference participants, competitors and their parents on Nov. 2-4, please use the gravel parking lots that are located on 577 Clark Street and 598 Clark Street in Orangeburg. The Claflin Music Department will arrange for a van or golf cart service, running from the parking lots to the WVM center. The golf cart service time is listed below. If you decide to walk, it will take about 7-10 minutes from the parking lot to the WVM Fine Arts Center.

Nov. 2 – 8:20am to 4:00pm AND 7:00pm to 9:20pm
Nov. 3 – 10:00am to 4:00pm*
Nov. 4 – 8:00am to 3:30pm

*Van service will be running from 8:00am to 10:00am AND 9:00pm to 10:00pm.


Commissioned Composer

Leonard Mark Lewis

“My proposal is for a ten-minute violin and piano piece that utilizes the Carolina
wren rhythms, duets, and counterpoint collected from my backyard “oasis.” Listen for an embedded narrative of South Carolina folklore. The performers of this piece are Kari Giles, Assistant Concert Master of the Charlotte Symphony, and Leonard Mark Lewis, composer/pianist. The tentative title is Chanteuse of Midsummer.”

Leonard Mark Lewis, born in Great Yarmouth, England, in 1973 and raised in Houston, Texas, is a composer and pianist specializing in new music. His vocal works include a chamber opera, Wake Lucia, A Joycean Operatic Rite, and a catalog of celebrated art songs. He is an avid collaborator and has worked with choreographers and dance companies throughout the United States and abroad. He has received commissions and performances from the Charlotte Symphony, American Composer’s Orchestra, Symposium for New Band Music, and many others. His concerti include works for percussion, viola, saxophone, and euphonium. Other major artists have performed his Concerto for Saxophone, including Steve Ticknor (President’s Own), Nate Nabb, and Tracy Patterson, who performed the work at Carnegie Hall. Lewis, a Professor of Music at Winthrop University, is the recipient of awards including ASCAP, B.M.I., Columbia University (Bearns Prize), and Voices of Change. He lives in Fort Mill, SC with his wife, violinist, Kari Giles, their son, Mercer, and an excessive number of cats and dogs.


Guest Clinician

Lisa Bastien

On any given day, Lisa Bastien’s piano studio is abuzz with the joyous sounds of students making and learning about music. For over a quarter century, her home has served as a place where students of diverse ages, abilities, and interests have come to experience joy, discovery, growth, and a passion for music.

Lisa began piano lessons at the age of four in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her mother, Jane Smisor Bastien. While Jane instilled in Lisa a passion for teaching and her keen sense of pedagogy, it was her father, James Bastien that introduced Lisa to the repertoire of the masters and fueled her love of great piano literature. Lisa went on to receive a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from Drake University where she studied with George Katz, and her Master’s degree in piano pedagogy from Arizona State University where she studied with Dr. Robert Roux. After completing her master’s, Lisa and her husband Basil Hanss moved to New Orleans where she taught in the Preparatory Piano Department at Loyola University. They eventually settled in New York City and Lisa established her studio, teaching both private and group lessons in piano and theory.

It was also in New York that Lisa began a prolific career as a writer and composer. Lisa has co-authored over 100 piano books with her mother Jane and her sister Lori. Collectively, the Bastien family has authored over 500 hundred books that are translated into 14 languages and have taught millions of students how to play the piano. Lisa has clocked countless days, weeks, and months in planes, trains, and automobiles traveling around the globe to share the Bastien publications with other teachers at workshops and conventions worldwide.

Through it all, however, it was—and continues to be—Lisa’s passion for excellence as a teacher, and her dedication to her students, that define her. Lisa cares deeply about the musical progress and personal growth of each individual student and finds great joy in the lifelong connections she has with her students and their families.


Guest Artist

Clayton Stephenson

Growing up in New York City, Clayton Stephenson found musical inspiration in community programs. As he describes it, the “Third Street Music School jump-started my music education; the Young People’s Choir taught me phrasing and voicing; Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program introduced me to formal and rigorous piano training, which enabled me to get into Juilliard Pre-College; the Morningside Music Bridge validated my talent and elevated my self-confidence; the Boy’s Club of New York exposed me to jazz; and the Lang Lang Foundation brought me to stages worldwide and transformed me from a piano student to a young artist.”

Clayton graduated from the Harvard-New England Conservatory (NEC) dual degree program in spring 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in economics at Harvard and a master’s degree in piano performance at NEC under Wha Kyung Byun. His appearance at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was lauded for his “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and performances that were “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone), earning him a spot among the finalists. He has also been named a 2022 Gilmore Young Artist; 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts; Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist; Gheens Young Artist; and Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

Recent and upcoming highlights include concertos with the Houston and North Carolina Symphonies and Las Vegas Philharmonic; festival appearances at Grand Teton and Tippet Rise; recitals at venues including Fondation Louis Vuitton and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; and collaborations with violinists Nikki and Timothy Chooi in Lithuania and England. On the 69th United Nations Day, Clayton played with the International Youth Orchestra at the U.N. General Assembly Hall. He has been featured on NPR, WUOL, and WQXR, and appeared in the “GRAMMY® Salute to Classical Music” Concert at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium.

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