The Magic of Neverland: Announcing Our Honoree Dr. Debra Lew Harder

We are thrilled to announce that Debra Lew Harder will be honored at our 79th Annual Gala, “Neverland: L’Isola che non c’è.”
With doctorates in both medicine and music, Debra Lew Harder has practiced as an emergency room physician, and has achieved a fulfilling career in music as a solo and collaborative pianist, speaker, broadcaster, and educator. In the fall of 2021, Debra joined the Metropolitan Opera as only the fifth radio host in the company’s 94-year broadcast history. She hosts live broadcasts for Sirius-XM and the Met’s internationally renowned Saturday Matinee Broadcasts, and interviews the great singers, conductors, and creative minds in the world of opera.
As a music educator, Debra was the co-director of Medicine + Music, a co-curricular program at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. She was on the applied music faculty of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges for many years. Her commitment to the arts community included service on the boards of the William Appling Singers and Orchestra, the Advancement of Music Committee of the Presser Foundation, and the East Asian Advisory Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Debra’s creative output includes numerous transcriptions for solo piano from the medieval, jazz, orchestral, operatic, and non-Western repertoire.
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