Remembering Stevi Ann Marks

Stevi Ann Marks had a lifelong passion for music, and it’s possible it made her life longer. Diagnosed with cancer, she was given a year to live–17 years ago. She died on July 23, at age 68.

Her first professional singing gig was with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus, under Sir Georg Solti. Over the years, she sang in the choir at her synagogue, her college glee club and a cappella group, and community choruses.

But her passion was for teaching music. Marks, who lived in Deerfield, earned her degree in music education at the University of Illinois, and was a student teacher while still a college senior. After graduation, she taught at Wilmot/Caruso Junior High in Deerfield. She earned her master’s degree in the subject from VanderCook College of Music.

While she served as the choral director at Glenbrook South High School in 2008, her music department won the Grammy for the most outstanding music program in the nation. In 2014, she was nominated for the Grammy’s Music Educator Award.

She also served as head of choral programs at Midwest Young Artists, whose choirs performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall– and throughout Europe, including a concert for the 75th anniversary of Bulgaria’s rescue of 49,000 Jews.

Until a month before her passing, she taught future music educators at DePaul and Northwestern.

Marks also directed more than 100 plays and musicals, including Kindertransport . She won a Jeff Award for directing Songs for a New World for the Apple Tree Theatre.

Growing up, she discovered musicals at 5; her parents bought her a piano when she was 12. She began singing while in high school.

While she had always wanted to celebrate her bat mitzvah, receiving her diagnosis in 2006 made the matter more urgent. Her ceremony took place at her longtime (but now defunct) congregation B’nai Torah that year; she was 52. She was tutored by Rabbi Debra Nesselson, who became her personal rabbi.

“In the 17-plus years that Stevi grappled with cancer, she accomplished more than most do in a lifetime. She even planned the music for her own memorial,” said friend Susan Bleser, JUF’s executive creative director. “She derived immense energy from helping her thousands of students grow.”

Marks is survived by her husband of 43 years, Jeffrey Michael Marks, and her sons, Ian David (Megan Saylor) Marks and Zachary Scott (Debbie) Marks. She was the grandmother of Henry and Sidney, the aunt of many, and the older sister of Randi (Dan) Lustig and Lauren (Jay) Cowen. She was the daughter of the late Howard and Judy Silverman. Memorial contributions may be made to the Stevi Marks Scholarship Fund at the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory. Arrangements were made by Chicago Jewish Funerals, with interment at Shalom Memorial Park.