The Bartlesville Bells is a new performing group, consisting of 14 accomplished handbell players from the Bartlesville and Tulsa area.  Their performance for OKM will be their debut concert, with others already scheduled for fall and Christmas.  The Bartlesville Bells is sponsored by the Bartlesville Musical Research Society, a Federated Music Club, which has been a part of the Green Country music scene since 1908.  MRS is dedicated to encouraging and supporting music performance and education for all ages and genres of music.  Besides sponsoring the Bells, the organization presents monthly concerts and also awards close to $20,000 in scholarships and “camperships” to Bartlesville high school musicians each year.  For more information go to musicalresearch.org. 

Majoleine Gravley, Bartlesville Bells director – Marjoleine Gravley retired from the Bartlesville, OK Public Schools in May 2008, after sixteen years of service as high school and middle school choral director.  She also taught seven years in Michigan and Ohio prior to moving to Oklahoma.  She co-founded the Bartlesville Treble Choir and was its Artistic Director for 10 years.  Gravley also served as the Artistic Director of the Tulsa Children’s Chorus for 2 years.  Over the years, her choirs have received numerous District and State honors and awards.  Her choirs performed at the Oklahoma Music Educators Association conferences in 1997, 2003 and 2006.  Her choirs were also invited to perform at Carnegie hall in New York city.  Gravley has served as a choral, handbell and recorder clinician at the national, regional and state levels.  She was also the choral clinician for Circle the State with Song in NE Oklahoma.  Gravley has been active as a Lutheran Church musician for 56 years, serving churches in Ohio, Oklahoma and Indiana.  She was the Assistant Conductor and Accompanist of the Bartlesville Choral Society for several years.  She directed the Westron Wynde Earlye Music Consort (OK) for six years.  Marjoleine has been the Music Director/Orchestra/Conductor/Accompanist for several Children’s Musical Theater of Bartlesville productions.

The Ad-Lib Singers is a nonprofit musical group located in Bartlesville. The choral group, consisting of men and women, have served the community by entertaining at local medical care facilities and businesses since 1994. The group has performed at the OKM Music Festival for the past 24 years. Their concerts are free, as all operational funding is through tax-deductible, charitable donations.

Performing and teaching in Oklahoma for 43 years, Pennsylvania native, Lorelei Kaiser Barton is principal harpist with Tulsa’s Signature Symphony and The Bartlesville Symphony.  Ms. Barton has performed under the baton of greats such as Aaron Copeland, Ernest Bloch, Lucas Foss, and David Amram. As principal harpist, she has performed  with the Tulsa Philharmonic, Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Tulsa Opera, Tulsa Ballet, Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, Fort Smith Symphony, Light Opera Oklahoma, Bartlesville Choral Society, Wildwood Opera Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas, Arkansas Symphony in Little Rock, Solisti Orchestra for OK Mozart, Oklahoma City Symphony, and Tulsa Camerata.  In 2011, Ms. Barton performed in a duo harp concert in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with harpist, Judi Utely.

As a Free-lance artist, Ms. Barton frequently performs for the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Brown Bag It series, regional churches, choirs, chamber ensembles, college faculty and community recitals as well as the OK Mozart Festival.  In 2013 she founded Musica Sacre di Tulsa which focuses on using sacred chamber music with harp to embellish church services of small, underserved congregations in Tulsa and surrounding communities.  When not traveling to other churches on Sunday mornings, you will find Ms. Barton as pianist for the First Church of Christ Scientist in Tulsa.

Having a passion for playing chamber music, Ms. Barton is the harpist with Mosaic Trio (violin, cello, harp and Harpwind (oboe and harp).  Both groups have played locally, state-wide and in surrounding states. 

Ms. Barton currently instructs private students and chamber groups at The University of Tulsa and Oral Roberts University. She formerly taught in the same capacity for 17 years at Tulsa Community College.  She has led students to win local, state, and national competitions. She formerly directed the Midwest Harp Ensemble for over 16 years and is founder and former executive director of the 25-year-old internationally recognized Midwest Harp Festival, which brings together harpists of all ages and levels and esteemed professionals. Now relocated to Chicagoland in 2019, the festival produced Tulsa community harp concerts throughout the week of the festival and throughout the year.  

Ms. Barton began her music studies on piano at age 5, adding viola and guitar studies before she started the harp at age 10. She pursued organ and vocal studies in her teen years winning local and state solo competitions as a mezzo-soprano.  She attended the University of Denver, CO as a vocal performance major, soon changing to and graduating with a harp performance degree as her interests changed, valuing the unique opportunities in playing the harp.  While in college she was a member of both the Colorado and University of Denver Harp Ensembles.  It was in Denver, under the baton of the late Antonio Brico, where she began her professional orchestra career.  Incidentally, she received her first guitar selling flower and vegetable seeds door to door in her home town of New Holland, Pa.

Ms. Barton gives much credit for her music and theory studies to pianist/instructor, Jo Ann Wagstaff and harpists, Suzann Davids, Jane Kauffman Brye, and the esteemed Alice Chalifoux, former principal harpist with Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of George Szell, and former instructor at Oberlin and Cleveland Institutes of Music.