Montemorelos Honors Olga Schmidt

Last fall, the University of Montemorelos dedicated its music building to Olga Schmidt, the founder of their music program. In 1971, Olga with her husband Samuel (an ordained pastor and Chairman of the Seminary) arrived on campus to find a desperate situation for music education.

The only instruments available were two inadequate, insect-infested upright pianos. Determined to fulfill the mission which she had been hired, Olga started teaching piano lessons in her home on her piano. Soon the number of piano

by Damaris Mathews

Olga is enshrined in the University’s history with the dedicatory plaque permanently affixed to the music building, acknowledging Olga as the person who brought the music program to Montemorelos.

students increased to about 45.

A donor gifted the school with a grand piano for student use, but as the number of music students increased, Olga alone could not meet the demand. She recruited four advanced students as TA’s for whom she set the lessons and mentored them on Sundays so that these four could work with incoming students while she herself gave lessons to as many as 25 other students during the week. Later brothers Hector and Carlos Flores formally proposed a bachelor’s degree program in music for the university, and in 1977 Olga was chosen as the first leader of this new department.

Though busy as teacher and administrator, Olga enrolled in doctorate work at Northwestern University and completed a Doctorate of Music in Organ Performance and Sacred Music in 1982.

Today after many temporary campus locations, the Music Department at Montemorelos is housed in its own building with hundreds of students and ensembles, multiple upgrades in both quality and quantity of instruments. Both a campus and conservatory music program owe thanks, in large part, to Olga’s