About Denise Bacon

The name Denise Bacon is synonymous with outstanding musical training at Dana Hall. Due to her high musical standards, Ms. Bacon brought distinction to the Dana Hall Music Department. She joined the music faculty in 1944 and became Head of the Department in 1948. In 1957, she founded the Dana School of Music in response to the growing demand by Wellesley residents who asked that musical instruction be available to them and their children. The school offered lessons in piano, voice, orchestral instruments, classical guitar, and theory for boys and girls as well as adults. Miss Bacon's unique teaching style influenced many aspiring musicians. In July of 1966, Ms. Bacon taught a workshop at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in the Orff and Kodaly methods of musical instruction. The response to these innovative musical techniques from fellow music teachers was so overwhelming that she was determined to go to Hungary and learn more about the Kodaly method of musical instruction and to bring this method to the United States. In 1966, she was awarded a Braitmayer Fellowship that paid for her salary and expenses for the 1967-68 year to study at the Liszt Academy of Music and the Orff Institute in Budapest, Hungary. The Kodály Musical Training Institute (KMTI) was established in September 1969 through in Wellesley, Massachusetts, as the result of Denise Bacon's 1967-68 year of study in Hungary. As a teacher training institution attempting to adapt the Kodály concept of music education to American culture, its main areas of interest were research into American folk music, the development of curriculum and model schools, and the training of master teachers. The Kodály Center of America (KCA) was established in April 1977 by Denise Bacon, at first in Wellesley, MA, and later in Newton and Providence. Its purposes were essentially the same as those of KMTI, and its program continued with the curriculum (somewhat expanded) originally established by Peter Erdei at KMTI. In 1995, Miss Bacon retired from her position as the Director of the Kodaly Center of America but today is still working hard on the KCA's archives. A part of the archival material will go to the International Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet, Hungary and a more complete United States collection will go to the University of Maryland. Her many honors include the Outstanding Alumni Award of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1984, the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Organization of American Kodaly Educators in 1989, and two medals from the Hungarian government in 1983 and 1989. (Source: the webpage of the KCA and the webpage of the Dana Hall School)