Glasser leaves on a 'high note'

Pam Glasser is known to many inhabitants in Carbon County as a music teacher. To fellow musicians and concert goers in Wyoming, Houston and Israel, Glasser is acknowledged as an accomplished French horn virtuoso.

Glasser may be extremely accomplished on the French horn, but she plays other instruments, including some she makes herself. Her love of music is second only to her love of teaching music appreciation to the new generations. She has been teaching in Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) for over five years.

Until her announcement to retire at the end of the year, she was currently the music teacher for Medicine Bow and Elk Mountain elementary schools and band teacher for Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) High School and, two years ago, she also taught music in Encampment.

Born in a Detroit suburb, she moved to the inner city when she was two because her father passed away and Glasser's mother had to move the family to an area she describes as very low income. Her mother was a seamstress for the priests for the Catholic parish to afford Glasser's tuition at St. Dominican High School, the school she went to until her sophomore year.

She learned to play the accordion at the age of 11. At 13 she took up the guitar and by 15 she was teaching guitar so she could pay for her accordion lessons.

Glasser left the Catholic school system and went to Denby, a public school, that had just become a magnet school for fine arts. This school had five choirs and an orchestra. The student population had 6,000 students and there were three shifts. Glasser ended up having five music classes a day in her junior and senior years.

It was at Denby she learned to play the French horn. She said at first she was assigned the bassoon, but because it was broken, the teacher gave her the horn instrument.

"A love affair with the French horn began," Glasser laughed.

She also sang at the school.

The choir she belonged to at Denby was exceptional said Glasser. A highlight of her time at Denby was when the choir went to Eisteddfod.

The national Eisteddfod of Wales is a festival for musicians that are not professional. The festival travels from place to place, alternating between north and south Wales, attracting around 150,000 visitors.

After high school, she went to University of Michigan, majoring in music theory for two and a half years, before getting a scholarship to Wayne State University where she graduated .

"Wayne State is one of the best schools for music and the joke was my degree was BEMUSED (Bachelor of Music Education)," Glasser joked.

Her first jobs after she graduated college were in the suburbs of Detroit because the city itself did away with music classes. After two years, the city brought the classes back and Glasser took work in the city system for a year.

Unfortunately, Detroit closed out the music and arts programs just as she came on board, so she found herself substituting in the suburbs.

"In one years time, when all the test scores plummeted the year they had no music and art, they put it back in," Glasser said. "So I did get a year teaching in there."

Glasser said she loved teaching the inner city youth because they really wanted to learn music, but she said the area she worked looked like it had been bombed out.

Rice University started recruiting horn players for their masters program and, after completing the masters program, Glasser was made orchestra librarian.

Freelance work was something Glasser had done in Detroit to a small degree, playing with the Detroit Symphony, but she had much more work in the Houston area. Glasser said she played several times with the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera and Houston Pops.

Glasser joined the Houston Young Audiences and toured the state. She also taught while touring and is proud to have trained some excellent students that were honored by the state. In the All State Orchestra from the east half of Texas, 12 of 24 players were Glasser's students.

The U.S. has not been the only country to have her play with their music companies.

She jumped at an invitation extended by the Israel Sinfonietta based in Beersheba to be second horn for a year back in 1985.

Glasser came back to the U.S. and was called to play in the Teton B Orchestra, which is the younger orchestra, she said.

"I fell in love with Wyoming," Glasser said. "I knew I had to move here."

She spent three years with the Mantovani Orchestra, with whom she toured Asia and the U.S., before she could realize by her dream to come back to Wyoming.

It was 1990 when she did make it back to Laramie after she won the State Music Performing Grant. By winning that grant, she got invited to play with Wyoming Symphony in Casper.

For the next 22 years, Glasser played the principal horn. During this time she was invited to play with ArtCore in Casper, where she still plays solo on occasions.

It was also during her time in Casper she started teaching at public schools as a substitute teacher and worked for the system there seven years.

When Dubois offered her a full time teaching job for K-12, she took it and lasted seven years.

Carbon County School District No 2 brought her to Encampment K-12 and HEM High School to teach five and half years ago. Two years ago her schedule changed to Medicine Bow , Elk Mountain and Hanna.

"I will always be grateful to Dr. Copeland for figuring out to putting me in the north end here," Glasser said.

She said it is gratifying that the students she taught in Encampment have stayed in music.

"I am so proud of all the students I have taught in Carbon County, but I am especially proud of the kids in the north of the county," Glasser said. "An example is one of my best students got sick the night before a concert, but he took medicine and played a composition he wrote for piano, but also played the Irish flute beautifully. Conor (McGraw) made me so proud of his determination."

Glasser said Sabrina Geller (from HEM) coming back to the school district is another student she sees thriving because of music.

"She plays guitar amazing and has a beautiful voice," Glasser said. "So anyone I see flourishing towards the end of their school year in music gives me great joy and I am happy to have been a part of it."

Glasser said she will miss teaching, but not the red tape.

"I will be very open about that," Glasser said. "It can be hard."

Her future plan is to work her cabin in Dubois into a full time home. Recently, Glasser has become certified to be a lay minister in the Episcopal Church. The church is taking a trip to Greece and Istanbul.

"We are following the steps of St. Paul," Glasser said. "I have been cramming Greek in my head."

When she gets back to Dubois, Glasser hopes to do some substitute teaching.

On leaving CCSD2, Glasser said she will miss many people.

"The staff, the students and admin, I have to thank them all," Glasser said. "This has been a great six years and the concerts of the past few days, have been a wonderful way to go out."