Dr. Beverly Everett

Beverly Everett is Music Director of the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra and the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra. In 2009 Dr. Everett was the youngest-ever recipient of the “Friend of the Arts” award in Bemidji, and in 2010 Everett was one of six conductors in the nation to receive an “Excellence in Music Education” award by the American Prize. In 2011 she was awarded one of the first Region 2 Arts/McKnight Career Advancement Fellowships, which she will use to study with JoAnne Falletta. Everett was named as one of Bismarck-Mandan Business Watch magazine’s “40 under 40” for making a difference through her work in the region, was City Magazine’s cover story in November of 2011, and was the cover feature in Fine Living Review in December of 2011 and Northwoods Woman in March/April of 2009.

Everett is passionately committed to working with living composers and commissioning projects. In April of 2009 Everett conducted the premiere of “Sacred Vows,” a commissioned work by Libby Larsen that celebrated the 70th Anniversary of the Bemidji Symphony. Larsen said of Everett, “I can tell you without hesitation that Dr. Everett IS an ideal music director. She is deeply gifted as a conductor, she is deeply committed to music as the articulate language of the soul and she is completely dedicated to the place of the symphony orchestra in our 21st century world.” Everett has conducted the orchestral premiere of “Loss of Breath,” by Ralph Johnson, “Fanfare for the New Renaissance,” by Carol Worthey, and three premieres of works of composer Joseph Adams: “Effloressence,” “Quiet Landscape,” and “Soul Discovery.” Everett is currently working with Chris Brubeck for the premiere of his commissioned work by the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony in partnership with the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickenson State University, “In Cowboyland,” a symphonic portrait featuring Clay Jenkinson as Roosevelt.

Dr. Everett remains an active concert organist and was a featured soloist with the Missouri Valley Chamber Orchestra in November 2009 and November 2010. Everett composed the original film score for the documentary film on former North Dakota Governor William L. Guy, “The Charisma of Competence.” She has collaborated with musicians such as composer and jazz artist Chris Brubeck, classical guitarist Petar Jankovic, and pianist André Watts with whom she performed the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto with the Bemidji Symphony in 2008.

Everett holds degrees in organ and conducting from Baylor University, where she was a Presser Foundation Scholar, and from the University of Iowa, where she earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts in 2001. She studied at the Aspen Music Festival for two consecutive summers. Immediately following her doctoral work, Everett held an apprenticeship with the Des Moines Symphony. Her principal conducting teachers include Stephen Heyde, Murry Sidlin and William LaRue Jones. She studied organ with Joyce Jones at Baylor University and Delbert Disselhorst at the University of Iowa.

Everett is represented by Joanne Rile of Rile Arts Management.