Oakwood Schools Foundation - Kathryn Iams Chamberlain Student Award

This annual award was established in 2023 in memory of Kathryn (Iams) Chamberlain, who at her 1966 graduation from Oakwood High School, sang a solo, shared a prize in a violin competition and was named class Valedictorian. During the following summer, she studied voice in Salisbury, MA, with renowned New York voice teacher, Grace Leslie. In the next fall at Bowling Green State University she enrolled in the College of Musical Arts for a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education. Additionally, she studied with voice faculty, performed a solo recital and fulfilled degree requirements in Music History. She sang in two auditioned choral ensembles, and drawing on her earlier studies in ballet, danced and sang in College musical theater productions. She graduated in 1970 in Music Education Magna Cum Laude.
She continued at Bowling Green, for lessons with voice faculty, did course work in math, social studies and science and completed the Master of Music degree in Music History, with thesis, in 1973. At McCarthy Middle School in Chelmsford, MA, where she later taught, she initiated and led for ten years student musical theater productions that were very popular with students, parents and community members. During that time, she assisted her husband, Executive Director of the Center for the Arts at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, in management tasks in the presentation of national and international touring artists in music, dance and theater. This award of $1,000 is dedicated in her honor and memory by her husband Oliver and their adult children Carolyn, Margaret, James and Elizabeth through the Chamberlain Family Trust.

Applicants must:

• Be a graduating senior from Oakwood High School who participated in choir, band, orchestra or theater for at least three years. Preference may be given to students planning to major in music education, music history, performance (in voice or any instrument) or in arts management (administration) with an emphasis on either visual or performing arts.
• Be accepted to a four-year college or university. If the student is planning to major in music education, music performance, or arts management the school should be an accredited.
• Demonstrate leadership qualities inside or outside of the classroom