January 9, 2003

School of Music dean appointed

Toni-Marie Montgomery, dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas and an accomplished pianist, has been named dean of the School of Music, effective July 1, 2003, Northwestern Provost Lawrence B. Dumas announced.

Toni-Marie Montgomery

Montgomery, 46, will succeed Bernard Dobroski, who will step down from his 13-year term as dean this summer and become John Evans Professor of Music at Northwestern.
Montgomery was identified in a national search, begun in the spring and carried out by a committee, which included faculty, staff, student and alumni representatives.

“Toni-Marie Montgomery combines impressive achievement as a musician with exceptional administrative vision and experience,” Dumas said. “Having led both a school of music and a school of fine arts, she is especially well equipped to ensure that Northwestern’s School of Music remains both a first-rate center for the training of musicians and scholars of music, as well as an energetic collaborator with other areas of the University.”

Montgomery said, “I am extremely proud and honored to have been selected as dean of Northwestern’s premier School of Music. I look forward to working with the School’s outstanding faculty, students and staff in achieving the goal of recognition as the leading musical institution of the 21st century.”

Montgomery holds doctor of musical arts and master of music degrees in piano chamber music and accompanying from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of music degree in piano performance from the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts. She is originally from Philadelphia.

She also has studied at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France; the Summer Institute for Women in Higher Educaton at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.; and the Harvard Management Development Program at Harvard University.

In 2000, Montgomery became dean of the University of Kansas School of Fine Arts, a school with 100 full-time faculty members and more than 1,600 students, offering more than 40 undergraduate and graduate degree programs within the departments of art, design, and music and dance. She also oversees the university’s main performing arts venue, the Lied Center of Kansas.

Previously she had served as director of the School of Music at Arizona State University, where she led a faculty of 65 offering degrees through the doctoral level to 750 students. Montgomery also held the positions of assistant and associate dean of the College of Fine Arts at Arizona State.

She has also served as the assistant dean for academic programs of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, and the artistic director and assistant director of the School of Music at Western Michigan Univer-sity. While there, she coordinated the Michigan Youth Arts Festival.

Throughout her administrative career, Montgomery has continued her musical performances, most recently on a concert tour this fall in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. She has performed throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe and Latin America. She was a founding member in 1988 of the Black Music Repertory Ensemble of Chicago’s Columbia College, a group that specializes in performing works by black composers and promotes appreciation for the black musical heritage. Montgomery’s performances with the ensemble included appearances at New York City’s Lincoln Center and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall.

Dumas said, “We are deeply grateful to Bernie Dobroski for his devoted service as dean of the School of Music. The School has grown in strength under Bernie’s leadership, and we look forward to his continued role as both a faculty colleague and an advocate for the arts at Northwestern.”