Bill Messenger
Bill Messenger studied musical composition on scholarship at the Peabody Conservatory under Louis Cheslock and attended a Master Class with Nadia Boulanger, teacher of Aaron Copeland and Leonard Bernstein. When Mr. Messenger was a teenager, he played back-up piano for Cass Elliot, who later became the lead singer of the rock group, "The Mamas and the Papas." Later, when his trio appeared at the Eager House, the readers of Baltimore Magazine voted him Baltimore's Best Pianist.
Mr. Messenger holds two Masters Degrees from Johns Hopkins University and has done additional graduate work in musicology at the University of Maryland. His music criticism has appeared in the Baltimore News American, the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Magazine. He has published numerous articles on American Popular Music and is the writer-performer-narrator, of The Teaching Company's 16-hour history of American Musical Theater.
In addition to lecturing at the Peabody Road Scholars Program in Baltimore, Mr. Messenger currently lectures at various out-of-state sites, including West Virginia State College, Pennsylvania's Black Rock Retreat Center, and Delaware State College. For six years Mr. Messenger created a series of fall music programs at the Chautauqua Institute in Chautauqua, New York and continues to lecture during the summer at the Chautauqua Institute in Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania.
