About the Performers

Mary Schallhorn, Piano

Mary Schallhorn , General Director and accompanist of the Maud Powell Music Festival, recently became Managing Director of the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra in October of 2011.  She was a member of the Illinois Valley Community College music faculty where she taught class piano and applied piano lessons for 15 years before coming to Sheboygan. She served as the accompanist for the Mendota Township High School Choirs for 14 years and the Illinois Valley Youth Choirs for 22 years. She became keyboardist for the Wheaton Symphony Orchestra in the summer of 2008. She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Piano Performance from Western Illinois University and a Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance with an emphasis in accompanying from Illinois State University. Before teaching at IVCC, Mary served as the accompanist for LaSalle-Peru Township High School for 8 years. She has accompanied many NCIC and IMEA District Choral Music Festivals. She has been the Faculty accompanist for the Maud Powell Music Festival and Powell Festival Institute for the last 13 years, plus she also does a variety of freelance accompanying for various individuals and groups in the area. She has been a soloist with the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra where she has performed Duke Ellington’s New World A-Coming, Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”, and George Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm Variations”. She also performed with the Mendota Township High School Band on their 43rd Annual Symphony Concert where she performed a special arrangement of the Schumann Piano Concerto in a minor that Mr. Robert Baile arranged especially for her and the MHS Band.