Donna Harler-Smith
Birthdate: May 22, 1944
dharler1@unl.edu

Career I Sigma Alpha Iota

Career

• Voice: Soprano
• Degrees: M.M. from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati in Voice (1968); B.A. from Denison University
• Who has inspired me: I think that my choral conductor in graduate school is responsible for my becoming truly passionate about music. He was a protege of Robert Shaw and used to bring Shaw over to my apartment after rehearsals with the Cincinnati Symphony when Shaw conducted at the May Festival. I saved Jack Daniels bottles and Carlings Black Label bottles from which Maestro Shaw had consumed beverages for YEARS! I sort of wish I still had them. He was a truly amazing man. Shaw's mentor, Julius Hereford, who taught at Indiana University for a number of years, was my other inspiration. He used to get up at 5:00 in the morning so he could study the master works of Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven before he began his teaching responsibilities, which he maintained well into his 80's!
• Other interests: Married to Charles Chip Smith, professor at Hastings College and volunteer fire fighter with the Sierra fire district in Colorado. We presently have 2 Shetland sheepdogs named Tori and Nimue.

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Sigma Alpha Iota

• Year initiated: Around 1980
• The best part of SAI: I love the SAI rituals, the "older" alums (not too many older than me, but a few...), meeting SAIs from around the country, the support the SAI sisters give each other, and the fact that my friend Michael Cotton is now my sister! In the past I have been asked if I was his girlfriend (once) or his mother (once), and now I have a great answer - he's my SISTER!

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