JAVS Fall 2003

& Harnmerstein's musical come dy, Cinderella. Some violinists and a violist were still needed for the orchestra-would I consider playing? Kerry Sharer was going to play one of the string parts and Marry was going read the percus sion score. It sounded like a very good gig and I conunitted to it immediately. An e-mail message from Kerry arrived within hours asking me to come by Royal Music Company on Monday to pick up a part. At 10 AM I was in the store, the faci lities of which she used to teach a very large stu dio of over 60 young people. I shared my impressions of the recent viola congress in Kronberg, Germany-we had played a wed ding together on the eve of my departure-and told her about finding a beautiful viola duet of intermediate difficulty that we could play for her students and their families in one of her recitals in the autumn, one that she might consider using with some of her more advanced students. We visited the better part of 20 minutes, joking about which of us would have the "honor" of play ing the viola part since we were both violists and wh o would have to "make do" on second violin. I asked her to make it easy on her self, that I would be happy to play either. She retrieved the viola part, gave it to me, and said she would be giving me several envious glances during the performance

University while they were working on graduate degrees in music. When he returned in 1999 to assume duties as band director of Bowling Green's Warren East High School, she came as well and soon was employed as a clerk with Royal Music Company. I was delighted to learn that a stu

Miranda Pederson/Bowling Green Daily News

by Dwight Pounds

dent of my friend and former AVS President Peter Slowik was among us, knowing that Peter was a stickler for both technique and musicianship. She opened a pri vate studio and soon was playing in the Owensboro and Bowling Green-Western Symphonies, sub bing in Nashville, and was a founding member of the Bowling Green Chamber Orchestra. By the time she and Marry married, her private studio had grown so large and the demand for her services so extensive that studio teaching became her full-time job. The foLlowing describes the week that began on Sunday, july 13, 2003: A call carne to my home regard ing the Fountain Square Players' upcoming production of Rogers

It is with deep sadness and a pro found sense of loss that I inform the Society of the passing of vio list Kerry McCay Sharer, my col league, frequent stand partner, and close friend for over four years. Death is difficult even in the most acceptable situations, but the burden is made all the more onerous when, in addition to the sense of loss inevitably fel t by close friends and family, they have to contend with pondering the imponderable at the passing of such a young, vibrant, and tal ented person in what has been euphemistically called rhe prime of life. Kerry Sharer was Bowling G reen's accidental violin/viola reacher, having met Marry Sharer from Franklin, KY, at Northwestern

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