Lenore Voth Hiebert is recently retired from her post as lecturer at California State University, Fresno, where for several decades she taught classes and lessons in the areas of piano, accompanying, group piano, music theory, music fundamentals, sight singing, and ear training. Prior to being appointed to this teaching position, she served as a department collaborative pianist for a number of years, accompanying outside artist performances, degree recitals, faculty recitals, and department opera productions. Collaborative piano performing remains a strong interest and she performs frequently with her husband, Tom Hiebert, horn professor at CSUF.
Lenore’s B.A. degree in Piano was earned at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, from which she also later obtained a teaching certificate in K – 12 Music Education. Further study opportunities for her occurred in diverse locations such as Alaska, Salzburg, and Dresden in the former East Germany. After teaching in the schools for a year, accompanying began to take more and more of Lenore’s time and energies, so she pursued a master’s degree in Piano Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985, accompanying a number of fellow students in the graduate school for their solo recitals. After that, she was employed as a music department accompanist at several universities until beginning to teach at CSU, Fresno.
Teaching interests included creating her own teaching materials, guides, and self-published, low-cost textbooks, such as her “Piano-Focused Fundamentals” workbook. Lenore has been a church musician from a young age and also pursued interests in voice, guitar, and oboe as well as piano. She was a regular choir and service accompanist at Willow Avenue Mennonite Church in Fresno for many years, transitioning now to substituting and playing for special services and memorial services when needed. Lenore was a member of the governing board of the local piano teachers group and maintained a small private piano teaching studio for pre- and post-college students.
In her retirement she is looking forward to volunteer work, to pursuing her interest in women writers, and to engaging in lots of travel, especially trips to visit the three adult Hiebert children now living in Boston, Oakland, and Seattle, although any new vistas are of interest. Lenore is a regular and enthusiastic participant in Willow Avenue’s writing group, and enjoys nature journaling on her own. Other outdoor activities such as picnicking, gardening, walking, and bicycling are high on her list of hobbies as well.