Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame Class of 2026 features youngest inductees, expands arts definition
The Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame will hold the induction banquet for the Class of 2026 from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, March 27, at Eagle Brook Country Club in Geneva. Susan S. Starrett will receive the premiere Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Arts Hall of Fame recognizes artists associated with the Fox Valley by birth, education, residence or service, who have achieved international or national acclaim.
Candidates have completed 20 years in their professional field and received recognition for excellence. The honor is for living artists or can be awarded posthumously.
The seven inductees are: Kelly Barr, classical music; Denise Crosby, journalism; Leslie Hunt, popular and progressive music; Stanley Konopka, classical music; Mary Beth McCarthy, choral music; Courtney Reed, theater; and Juel Ulven, folk music.
The Class of 2026 includes two of its youngest inductees ever — Leslie Hunt and Courtney Reed. And with the addition of inductees from folk and progressive music, the Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame expands its definition of what “the arts” mean today in a world where they are necessary for individual and communal well-being.
Tickets are $75 and a portion of the proceeds will be used to promote the arts in the Fox Valley with a free event for children and the community. For information, email info@fvahf.org, or visit FVAHF.org.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Performing arts educator Susan S. Starrett will receive the premiere Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award.
As an educator in schools and privately, more than 200 of her students have been named to Illinois Music Educators Association All-State Orchestras and 23 have been named Principal or Concertmaster of All-State. Many of her students have gone on to perform at the highest level in their field, including Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame Class of 2026 inductees Kelly Barr, violin, who was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1996-2009, and Stanley Konopka, assistant principal viola, The Cleveland Orchestra, 1993-present.
Former student Jim Trankina notes, “Susan Starrett has anchored her career in the (Fox Valley) area serving as an inspirational teacher, competition judge, and mentor to hundreds of students who have gone on to make a difference in their spheres of influence that literally span the globe.”
Starrett has been playing string instruments since an early age and studied with Elmer Szepessy, Paul Rolland, Roman Totenberg and Anthony Devroye. As a performer, Starrett has appeared with the University of Illinois Orchestra, Peoria Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony and Waukesha Symphony. She was concertmaster at the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. While attending Peoria Central High School, Starrett was a two-time concertmaster in the IL All State Orchestra and performed solos with the Peoria Symphony.
Starrett has continued to teach private lessons for 55 years in the area. Starrett also pursued the art of conducting. Her credits as conductor include the Illinois All-State Orchestra, the Dal-Hi Youth Symphony in Dallas, Fox Valley Youth Symphony, and numerous Illinois Music Educators Association and All-State festivals in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Texas.
Starrett has won numerous awards, including: Teacher of the Year, Proviso High School, 1964-68; Conductor of Illinois All-State in Dijon, France, 1968; Orchestra Director of the Year, Texas 1970; Orchestra Director of the Year, Illinois 1994 and Elgin Youth Symphony Teacher of the Year, 2012.
She is a member of Who’s Who in Music, the Illinois State Citizens Committee for Arts Education, Illinois Music Educators Association, the University of Illinois Music Board, and she has served as president of the Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame for 25 years. A University of Illinois Scholarship Endowment was established in 2008 in Starrett’s name for 10 Violin Performance and Music Education Scholarships a year.
2026 inductees
• Born in Aurora and raised in Big Rock, Kelly Barr began violin studies at age 4 and quickly emerged as an internationally recognized performer. By age 12, she was a soloist at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall and later performed in Amman, Jordan for dignitaries and members of King Hussein and Queen Noor’s family.
Barr performed across four continents as a member of the American Soviet Youth Orchestra and locally with the Fox Valley Youth Orchestra. She studied at the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, and completed her graduate work at the New England Conservatory of Music, earning multiple competition honors along the way.
Her professional career includes performing with the St. Louis Symphony and a long-standing position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Boston Pops, under legendary conductors including Seiji Ozawa, James Levine, and John Williams.
A dedicated educator, Barr has served on faculty at New England Conservatory, Rivers Music School, and Project STEP, where she has mentored generations of young musicians. In 2000, she returned to her roots as a featured performer on a Fox Valley Arts concert series honoring violinist Maud Powell.
• Denise Crosby has been a column writer for the Beacon-News, Courier-News, and Naperville Sun since 1995. Her columns have also appeared numerous times in the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, and other daily and weekly newspapers in the Chicago area for the last 40 years. Many of her columns, which have been published nationally and internationally, have been recognized for excellence by the Chicago Tribune, as well as numerous news organizations — including the National Newspapers Editors Association, the Illinois Associated Press Association, which awarded her back-to-back Sweepstakes Awards; and the Chicago Headline Club.
She also wrote two books with Big Talk Publishing. “Six Rings from Nowhere” is the inspirational life story of former NFL wide receiver Don Beebe, and is being used as the storyline by Salty Earth Pictures, which is scheduled next year to release a movie about Bebee titled “Run For Glory.”
Crosby is turning her second work, “Snow White Goes To War,” into a young adult book based on the true story of Auroran Amos Nicholson, a mechanic of B-24 bombers that took part in some of World War II’s most significant battles; and who also found a place in history as a creator of nose-art on these war planes, which included Disney characters.
• St. Charles native Leslie Hunt is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist known for her solo work, her role as the front-woman for the progressive rock band District 97, and for being a contestant on “American Idol.”
Granddaughter of beloved St. Charles civic leader and philanthropist, the late Max Hunt, Leslie Hunt was born into a musical family.
Her uncle, Jeff Hunt, was inducted in 2020. He has made his musical mark on the Fox Valley as the founder and director of the St. Charles Singers.
“We were always listening to music or someone was playing music in our living room. All of my aunts and uncles, and cousins, on both sides, played music. It was just a super musical environment,” Leslie said. “Except for my grandfather Max. He was basically tone deaf!”
Leslie Hunt began taking piano lessons at the age of 4 from a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and honed her performance skills at Pheasant Run Theater in shows like “The Music Man” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”
After hearing her demo tape, Grammy winner Jim Peterik became a mentor and encouraged her songwriting skills.
Hunt graduated from St. Charles High School in 2000 and majored in music composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, where she met members of District 97, a progressive rock band that she still performs with today. Hunt is one of the few women in that genre and is acclaimed for her contributions to the music. She was also a top 10 female finalist in season six of “American Idol.”
• Violist, composer, educator, and orchestral leader, Stanley Konopka has built an internationally respected career rooted in artistic excellence and musical innovation. After beginning his viola studies in Batavia, he performed with the Youth Symphony of DuPage, Chicago Youth Symphony, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago before continuing his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music under Cleveland Orchestra Principal Viola Robert Vernon.
A prize-winning composer and musician from an early age, Konopka earned national honors including the B.M.I. Award to Student Composers and the Young Artists Award at Interlochen Arts Academy. In 1991, he joined The Cleveland Orchestra, where he was appointed Assistant Principal Viola in 1993. He has also performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras across the country.
A dedicated chamber musician and recording artist, Konopka has collaborated with leading ensembles and recorded on the Telarc and Azica labels. Since 1995, he has served on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he developed and continues to teach the Orchestral Repertoire Class for Viola. His impact as an educator extends internationally through master classes, youth orchestra coaching, and the founding of Viola Master Classes, an online program serving students and professionals worldwide.
In 2024, his arrangement of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3 for double string orchestra was recorded by Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra, with performances in Cleveland and at Carnegie Hall, receiving critical acclaim.
• Mary Beth McCarthy has been the conductor and artistic director of the Fox Valley Festival Chorus for over 25 years. One of Chicago area’s oldest community choruses, it was founded in 1950 with primary leadership from the late Sten Halfvarson, who is also a Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame inductee. In 2000, McCarthy took over directorship of the chorus, reviving it to the 60-member chorus it is today. The chorus performs two major concerts each year, in addition to community performances, and national and international tours. McCarthy and the chorus have received awards in both Italy and France for their performances.
McCarthy also serves as the director of instrumental music at Illinois Math and Science Academy. Prior to her position at IMSA, she held faculty positions at Aurora University and Rosary High School, creating and directing both instrumental and vocal ensembles. At Rosary, she created Illinois’ first all-girls symphony orchestra.
Born in Naperville, she began both her instrumental and vocal training at a young age. She attended Naperville Central High School and performed with the Chicago and DuPage Youth Symphony Orchestras. Her primary instruments were piano, violin, and flute. As an instrumentalist, McCarthy studied under Otkar Scrobek, Chicago Symphony, Louise Escot, Chicago Youth Symphony and John Svoboda, DuPage Youth Symphony. She attended North Central College, earning a BA in History, including studies in Musicology and Vocal Performance. McCarthy received her MM in Music Education from Northwestern University.
• Elgin native Courtney Reed fell in love with theater at 6 years old when she appeared as a mouse in a Children’s Theatre of Elgin production of “Cinderella.”
That beginning led to a career on Broadway, and a starring role as the original “Princess Jasmine” in the Disney musical “Aladdin” in 2014.
“Honestly, I could talk for hours about how CTE has enhanced my life, and contributed to where I am today,” Reed said. Today she is an acclaimed musical theater performer and will be one of the youngest inductees into the Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame.
The 2002 Larkin High School Visual and Performing Arts Academy graduate went on to earn a degree in musical theater at the Chicago College of Performing Arts.
Reed received a Grammy nomination as the original “Princess Jasmine” in Disney’s smash Broadway hit “Aladdin.” She later went on to reprise the role in the North American Tour and once again in London’s West End production as part of its closing cast. Reed returned to the Broadway production for a limited engagement and took her final bow as Princess Jasmine on Oct. 27, 2019.
Reed is an original co-founder and co-producer of the globally touring Disney Princess the Concert. She just completed a Japanese tour of the production in January 2026 and will be part of a U.S. tour in April with other Broadway performers.
Reed also starred for over two years as “Satine” in the Broadway and First National Tour productions of “Moulin Rouge!” She also starred in Lauren Yee’s award-winning play Cambodian Rock Band, and gave her first solo concert, “Confessions of a Broadway Princess,” at Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York City.
Reed appeared in Drake Doremus’ feature film “Endings, Beginnings” starring Shailene Woodley in 2019. Over the past several years, she has appeared on such television shows as: Liza on Demand, “Search Party,” “The Affair,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “White Collar,” “NYC 22,” and “CSI: NY.”
• Juel Ulven, founder of the Fox Valley Folklore Society, will be inducted posthumously. The folklore society has presented more than 4.000 folklife events to date, including Illinois’ largest all-volunteer folk music festival, the Fox Valley Folk Music and Storytelling Festival; Old Time Community Barn Dances at locations throughout the area; monthly Storytelling Guild meetings and Sea Shanty sings; weekly Sing Arounds (song circles), and over 200 concerts with national and international folk artists. Learn more at FVFS.org.
“Juel Ulven was a force of nature,” said Larry Swenson, board president of Fox Valley Folklore Society. “His passion for folk music led to this huge, multifaceted organization that touches so many folk music lovers in our area.”
Ulven was born in a barn on a rural farm in Moorhead, Minnesota on Nov. 13, 1946. He joined the Navy at 17, where he attended school for radar and electronics, and discovered folk music. Ulven would hop on a bus to San Francisco from his base and listen to live music in various bars and lounges. He was deployed to the USS Nicholas-DD-449, the fastest and oldest destroyer in the fleet based at Pearl Harbor.
When he left the Navy, Ulven attended college in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and graduated in 1969. From there he moved to the Chicago area to begin a 33-year career as an engineer for Bell Labs. In 1970, Ulven settled in Aurora, where he lived for most of his life before moving to North Aurora a few years before his death in 2022.
Ulven founded the Fox Valley Folklore Society in 1975 to support and perpetuate folk music in the area. A year later, he started the Fox Valley Folk Music and Storytelling Festival to provide a venue for that folk music to be heard.
Ulven was also a large collector of folklore literature, as well as bluegrass banjos, guitars, and other folk instruments. He became passionate about restoring well-loved instruments, and spent much of his retirement years working at Cremer Guitarworks, repairing intricate inlays, replacing knobs and frets and restoring instruments to their prime.
In September 2019, Ulven was diagnosed with stage 4 mantle cell lymphoma. Through research, he later discovered the cancer was caused by multiple exposures to Agent Orange during his time in the Navy. He passed away on Aug. 19, 2022. The Fox Valley Folk Society continues its strong legacy through the board, which includes three founding members and Ulven’s wife, Jessi Laffey. They are planning the 50th anniversary of the festival on Labor Day 2026.