Leadership

Music Director

Martha Banghart

Martha “Marty” Banghart has shared her love of music for more than thirty years, as a high school educator, choral director, private instructor, and vocalist. She is well known in Maryland and beyond as an innovative teacher and passionate supporter of the choral arts.

Ms. Banghart is currently the choral director of the Deer Creek Chorale, a community choir she founded as an outlet for inter-generational singers of all abilities to experience the joy of choral music. In addition to her work with her chorus, Ms. Banghart has a thriving private voice and classical guitar studio with students ranging from middle-schoolers to adults.

Ms. Banghart served as the Choral Director of North Harford High School for 27 years. In that time, her students were chosen countless times for honor choirs at county, state, and national levels.  

Her honors include selection as a Maryland Music Educator of Excellence, and Director of Note by the Choral Director Magazine. Ms. Banghart received a B.S. in Music Education from Skidmore College, a M.A.T. from UNC-Chapel Hill, and additional graduate credits from Towson University, Peabody Conservatory and Westminster Choir College.

Contact Marty. For more on her background, click here.

Assistant director Wayne Perry is a life-long musician from the Baltimore area.  A retired Harford County Public School educator, he currently serves as an education consultant and on the faculties of Harford Community College and the McDaniel College graduate school.

His career as an educator began teaching high school band and orchestra at Joppatowne High School and under his leadership and tutelage, the instrumental ensembles retained a strong reputation of excellence, garnering various awards and recognition.  He spent 13 years in the classroom, moving into school administration for the next 17 years.  He spent his last nine years with the Harford County Public School system as principal of two middle schools.  Wayne is a past president of the Maryland Association of Band Directors.

He majored in tuba at Towson University, studying under Dan Brown, then of the Baltimore Symphony.  Prior to receiving his Bachelor of Science, he spent two years in Australia as a teaching missionary.

For more on his background, click here.

Shisa Suskey

Accompanist

Shisa Hasebe Suskey, a native of Japan, studied piano with Yasuko Shinoi of Kunitachi Conservatory of Music in Tokyo, coming to the USA in 1981 to study with Latvian pianist Herman Godes. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree with Summa Cum Laude and Masters of Music from West Virginia University.  Her performances have been broadcast in WV Public Radio and WQXR, New York Times Radio Station.

Shisa has lived in Harford County, MD since 1991.  She served as the President of Harford County Piano Teachers Association (HCPTA) from 1997-1999 and the President of Baltimore Music Teachers Association (BMTA) from 2000-2003.  She has taught Class Piano at Harford Community College and gives private piano lessons in her studio along Music Theory and Chamber Music. 

She has been an adjudicator of piano competitions in the Baltimore-Washington Area including Maryland State Music Teachers Association and its county chapters.  Shisa has been the choir director and organist at the Church of the Resurrection Episcopal Church in Joppatown since 1991.

For more on her background, click here.