New music school director makes smooth connection from Vermont to Montana

When Mary Bang decides she wants to try something new, she simply does it.

It’s the reason she moved from Waterbury, Vt., to Whitefish last December.

It’s also the reason that to say she is qualified for her job as North Valley Music School’s new executive director would be an understatement. Bang’s extensive background in marketing, public relations, accounting, special events, design and real estate is a result of the hands-on training she received at her numerous jobs each time she chose to pursue a new interest.

A New England native, Bang spent 10 years as executive director and state chairman of the Vermont Alpine Racing Association. She also has served on the National Board of Directors for the United States Ski Association. She has done marketing and public relations for a Massachusetts ski manufacturer and worked as a real-estate broker in Boston. Her most recent job was as a national sales manager for a manufacturer in Waterbury.

Bang was born in Greenwich, Conn., and spent much of her childhood in West Windsor, Vt. Her mother made sure that Bang and her six siblings were always involved in athletics, whether it was field hockey and tennis at school, horseback riding at home, or skiing at Ascutney Mountain Resort. She attended Windsor High School and majored in English and art at the University of Vermont.

MUSIC was very much a part of Bang’s life from the get-go. 

Her father, Joseph Victor Laderoute, sang tenor for the Metropolitan Opera and also taught music at numerous institutes across the country, including the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. He was also a concert artist and a choir conductor. Her mother was a teacher and also played music in a family quartet that included Bang’s aunt, uncle and grandmother.

As a child, Bang was given piano, violin and ballet lessons. She and her siblings were exposed to a plethora of classical music, including opera, but were forbidden from listening to the more contemporary radio tunes.

“[My parents’] idea of more casual music were Broadway shows or operettas,” she recalled. “We were never allowed to listen to Elvis ... because [my mother said] he wiggled his hips too much.”

So when Bang became a mother, she did her best to expose her own children to all genres of music.

Her son, Peter, is now 31 and is a professional motocross racer in Reno, Nev. Her daughter, Megan, is 34 and works as a teacher in Chicago, where she lives with her husband and three children.

Bang’s brother-in-law, Roy Loman, coaches the Whitefish Mountain Resort Race Team. He and Bang’s sister have lived in Whitefish for the past three years. Their local residence, as well as her desire for a change of scenery, are what drew her to the resort town.

But despite her 2,000-mile move west, Bang said Montana’s scenery, which she calls “more breathtaking” than Vermont’s, is really the only quality that sets it apart from her home state. Bang explained that the friendly attitude of the residents and generally easygoing lifestyle are among many similarities between the two locales.

“I think that’s why it’s been so easy to make the change,” she said.

While Bang’s love of classical music has continued, she no longer plays the piano or violin. She does, however, design and make quilts and sweaters. She still skis occasionally and is an avid sailor and golfer. She looks forward to spending many hours this summer taking advantage of the Flathead Valley’s vast number of golf courses — once her golf clubs arrive from Vermont.

Bang calls herself a diehard fan of the New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox. She follows the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics only when they make the playoffs.

She has been at North Valley Music School for only three weeks, and she is already enjoying it.

“It’s energizing, it’s interesting, it’s rewarding, it’s challenging,” she says. “And the people involved here are just fantastic people.”