Shelley Bozovich Boyson
1959 -
Shelley Bozovich Boyson, pianist and violinist, has taught piano for nearly 25 years in both school and private studio settings. She has also played harpsichord and oboe.
Shelley was born in Santa Barbara,
California, and raised in Denver, Colorado, the younger of two daughters of
Joseph Forsyth and Cynthia McGee Bozovich. Her
mother’s family was very musical, her mother being a singer, her aunt both a
singer and violinist, and her grandmother having studied piano with Van
Cliburn’s mother.
Both Shelley and her sister, Carey Bozovich, started piano lessons in the third grade under Patricia Rohlf and then continued under Carol Schmied while attending Mile High Academy (a K-12 SDA school), and also served as accompanists for the choirs there. Shelley recently related how her musical experience expanded:
As
soon as I started piano lessons, I knew that I would be able to add a second
instrument. My sister had chosen cello, and I was thinking about either violin
or oboe. In the summer before 6th grade, I began violin lessons with
my aunt Anna Laurie, and eventually continued with Irene Abosch,
concertmistress of the Denver Symphony Orchestra, later the Colorado Symphony
Orchestra. Within a few months of my starting the violin, band director Ivan Mallernee invited my sister and me to learn to play the
bassoon and oboe. Soon we were both playing in the academy band and smaller
ensembles, and continued doing so throughout high school.
Following graduation in 1978 as valedictorian of her senior class at MHA, Shelley enrolled at Pacific Union College, where she studied piano under James McGee and Lynn Wheeler, as well as organ and harpsichord under Del and Lois Case. She also accompanied the select choir, Pro Musica, and various instrumentalists and performed a Mozart Piano Concerto with the orchestra in addition to playing violin in the orchestra.
After she graduated from PUC in 1982 with a B.Mus. in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy, Shelley and Carey spent a year in Vienna, Austria, attending many concerts and studying piano under Michael Gailit, piano and organ teacher at the Hochschule für Musik and organist at the Augustinerkirche.
Upon her return to Colorado,
Shelley enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
where she studied piano under Paul Parmelee and
completed an M.Mus. in Piano Performance in 1986. She
taught piano at the SDA grade school in Aurora from 1985 to 1990, and afterward
taught exclusively in her home studio.
Throughout the years, Shelley has accompanied various choirs and soloists at churches and schools and has played violin as a soloist and in small ensembles and orchestras at churches and schools as well as for weddings. Shelley married Michael Boyson in 1987, and they have two grown children, Trevor and Madeleine.
ds/2013
Sources: Interview with Shelley Bozovich Boyson, February 2013; personal knowledge.