Archive for

Day: June 10, 2021

Congratulations, Alabama!

Jun 10 2021

Congratulations, Alabama!

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston S. Churchill.

As I reflect on this past year with the decisions that were made by our music educators and leaders, I think of these words from Winston Churchill. Educators all across the state worked incredibly hard to continue enriching their students with the best quality music education possible.

Over the course of this year, I have witnessed educators share creative ideas and solve complex problems to a level I couldn’t have imaged two years ago. Congratulations on a job well done. Now that we are crossing this year’s finish line, I hope you take pride in knowing you had the courage to complete the journey.

I am so proud of our division leaders that had the fortitude to make the hard -decisions necessary for you and your students. Although their burden was great, they found a way to provide our students and educators with virtual Professional Development, Music Performance Assessments, Solo & Ensembles, in-person Honor Bands/Choirs and All-States Festivals in a safe environment.

I know of no other state in the country that has done so much towards providing so many opportunities for our students and educators than we have in Alabama. We can all take pride in knowing we worked together, never gave up and didn’t settle by taking the easy path.

Each year during the summer, a staff of AMEA leaders travel to Washington, D.C. to advocate for music education in what is known as “Hill Day” meetings. Last year’s events were cancelled and this year NAfME decided to organize virtual meetings during the month of March. I designated Dr. Rob Lyda as our State’s Captain to coordinate these meetings and I’m happy to report they were a great success.

During these “Hill Day” meetings, we were able to meet with the staff of Senators Tommy Tuberville and Richard Shelby along with Representatives Jerry Carl, Barry Moore, Mike Rogers, and Gary Palmer. We shared details of the issues music educators had to overcome this past year along with making suggestions towards our funding needs. Our main objective was to establish a relationship with these offices for their support. I would like to thank Dr. Lyda for his leadership and well organized meetings that led us to what I feel was a mission accomplished.

Soon after our meetings, the office of Rep. Rogers contacted NAfME in an effort to discover further information concerning social and emotional learning as well as the funding of music education. This response was recognized by NAfME as a great success

As this year comes to a close, we should celebrate our successes and learn from our struggles. Now is the time to look towards the future and begin the process of rebuilding with a new sense of appreciation and drive.

You can start now by planning your professional development for next year. During the All-State Band Festival this past April, I had the opportunity to attend my first in-person clinic in over a year! This experience left me with a renewed sense of appreciation for professional development.

The AMEA Leadership and staff are looking forward to organizing our next in-person Professional Development Conference in January of 2022. We plan to implement new ideas discovered over the past year into our next conference and make it the best experience possible.

I hope your year finished stronger than it st-arted and you finally have an opportunity to rest and recharge. I am looking forward to next year for what I anticipate will be the most fulfilling year of our careers. I can not wait to see you all again soon.

David Raney

ELEM/GEN: I Wish You More

Jun 10 2021

 

I Wish You More

I was in the bookstore last week and I found a delightful children’s book entitled, I Wish You More by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld (Chronicle Books, 2015). After reading a few of the pages, I bought the book as a gift for my student intern. It also made me think of you. Here are a few lines:

“I wish you more ups than downs,
I wish you more give than take,
I wish you more tippy-toes than deep (illustration of a pool)
I wish you more we than me
I wish you more hugs than ughs.. (skipping ahead…)
I wish you more treasures than pockets
I wish you more stories than stars,
I wish all of this for you, because you are everything I could wish for….. and more.”

Elementary AMEA, you are everything I could wish for and more. When the pandemic hit, you stepped up to the plate with lessons and materials to share with others. You participated in numerous Zoom and Google meets to plan how to teach and what to teach for the upcoming school year. Your colleagues reached out for help and you were there. Maybe you reached out too and found help through our organization or a colleague. You attended the 1st ever, virtual AMEA conference, making it one of the most successful conferences ever. You fill in the gap every day even though it has been hard and sometimes seemed impossible. You are amazing and I wish you more!

As we move forward into 2021, I am excited for music education in Alabama. As you know, my two-year term as Elementary Division President is coming to an end. It has been a pleasure serving you. You have elected a wonderful slate of officers who stand poised and ready to take the helm in June. Your newly elected Elementary Board is as follows:

President: Sarah McLendon President Elect: Alicia Luttrell Secretary: Melissa Galanopolous Treasurer: Devin Lacy

Past President: Betty Wilson Festival Director: Melissa McIntyre Hospitality: Erica Lutz

Please reach out to any of these educators or your district chairs if you have any questions about our upcoming workshops and conferences. We look forward to hearing from you about conference sessions, possible inservices, and/or clinicians you would like to have.

Remember, we have many excellent music education opportunities at our disposal this summer including Orff levels I and III at Samford University and Kodaly levels I, II, and III at the University of Montevallo. Also, registration for the Elementary Music Festival is open until May 7th. The festival will be held on October 15th at Eastmont Baptist Church in Montgomery. Details are below. Lastly, we have started planning our annual AMEA Professional Development Conference. This year our 2022 conference will be in Birmingham, on January 20-22, 2022. Please consider applying for your choral or instrumental group to perform at the conference or to be a presenter. Some of our best interest sessions have come from our fellow Alabama music teachers. Please consider sharing your wonderful

ideas with us. Both conference applications can be found on the myamea.org webpage https://myamea.org/conference-apply/. The deadline to apply is June 1st. These are just a few of the amazing opportunities we have for professional and personal development and I hope you will take advantage of as many as you can.

In closing, I know it has been a challenging year. I thank you for hanging in there and for doing your best during this unprecedented time. One day we will tell our grandkids the most amazing tales of when everything closed for months, including schools, there was no toilet paper to be found, and how we had to teach music over the computers. In fact, we may go down as the first generation of digital music educators. The next generation may laugh and tell us we are spinning a yarn. Won’t that be wonderful? I wish you all the best! I wish you more. More drums than desks, more smiles than masks, more hugs than waves. I wish you more sunshine than rain and more joy than sadness. “I wish all of this for you, because you are everything I could wish for….and more.”

For questions or updates, please contact us at elementaryamea@gmail.com.

Have a Great Summer,

Betty R. Wilson, President Elementary/General Division

 

Workshops and Other Professional Development Opportunities Alabama AOSA

Orff Levels I, and III Summer of 2021, June 21-July 2, 2021 Samford University: contact Dr. Soja msoja@samford.edu

Orff-Schulwerk Level One Workshop: https://eve.samford.edu/index.php?formid=3423&he=no Orff-Schulwerk Level Three Workshop: https://eve.samford.edu/index.php?formid=3424&he=no

AOSA Spring Workshop
March 5, 2022, Jennifer Donovan, Clinician

Sweet Home Alabama Kodaly Educators (S.H.A.K.E.)Workshop https://sites.google.com/view/alabamakodaly/home
Kodaly Levels I, II, III, July 12-23, 2021
University of Montevallo: Contact Becky Halliday ahalliday@montevallo.edu S.H.A.K.E. Workshops

Fall (August/Sept) 2021: Lea Hoppe, Clinician April 2022: Rachel Gibson, Clinician

East Alabama Music Educators

August 28th, 2021, Auburn, Alabama
Contact Dr. Rob Lyda for details lydarob@me.com

AMEA Music Festival
October 15, Eastmont Baptist Church
Clinicians: Rhonda Tucker and Jeremy Howard
For details email: ameafestival@gmail.com
The sign-up deadline is Friday, May 7, 2021, and all sign-ups must be completed online using this link: https://forms.gle/bb5syP2Y9Ci8UQfTA

AMEA Fall Workshop
October 16, Eastmont Baptist Church, TBA

AMEA Professional Development Conference January 20-22, 2022, Birmingham, Al

COLL: Collegiate Division Updates

Jun 10 2021

Collegiate Division Updates

The Collegiate Division has had a successful spring semester. The ALcNAfME board members, Emma Tosney (President), Mariah Martin (Vice-President), John Niiler (Treasurer), and Hannah Creel (Secretary), had the opportunity to participate in NAfME’s 2021 Hill Day. In this event, we advocated for music education with several state legislators alongside AMEA Governing Board members Dr. Rob Lyda, Dr. Meghan Merciers (ALcNAfME State Advisor), Dr. Greg Gumina, Dr. Becky Halliday, and Mr. David Raney. The collegiate members offered a unique perspective on the importance of music education that proved effective in the meetings and helped to bring to light some of the challenges that we have faced in the classroom due to the pandemic.

The executive board began planning the 2021 Alabama Collegiate Summit, which will take place on October 24 at the University of Alabama. We are excited to have the opportunity to meet in person at this event and expect to see many universities represented from across the state. Because of the effects of COVID-19, the theme for this year’s Summit is “Connect.” We hope to offer an opportunity for students to reconnect with one another and hear how connection is vital in the classroom. We are also planning on reaching out to initiative collegiate chapters throughout the summer to engage less active chapters and increase numbers in membership.

The ALcNAfME newsletter is still underway and helping to streamline communication between the various chapters throughout the state. In the newsletter, we post updates for collegiates and have a collegiate chapter and student spotlight; it has been a successful way for the various chapters to stay connected throughout the busy semester.

 

Emma Tosney, President, cNAfME Alabama

AOA: Capacity to Recover

Jun 10 2021

Capacity to Recover

When the life we once knew begins to settle back to us on the other side of the pandemic, it is obvious that we will never again take live music for granted. The passion that was instilled in us at a young age, mentored by great educators, transformed each of us into model performers, teachers, and clinicians. Dark performance stages and personal isolation will slowly fade as we are driven toward safely vaccinated events: the arena-filled rock concert, the local school ensemble performance, the professional orchestra, or the captivating film score screened at a local movie theatre.

I am impressed by the resilience of our state orchestra programs, and their never-ending commitment to their musicians. Professional orchestras have slowly migrated from virtual events to socially distant openings, featuring restructured repertoire that features a subsection of the entire ensemble. Seven Alabama youth orchestras never adopted an attitude of defeat, setting up virtual instruction, score study, and masterclasses to keep talented students engaged. Public school orchestra programs are slowly reintroducing instruments into classrooms. And the Alabama Orchestra Association remains committed to our talented orchestra students, as a challenging year forced us to be decisive in adapting to virtual All-State Auditions and the virtual Orchestra Music Performance Assessment. Socially-distant, vaccinated crowds can now return to the concert hall to be swept away from their daily struggles to be uplifted and fulfilled.

Please help me thank the countless orchestra educators, administrators, professors, grant writers, music librarians, stage managers, music directors, and philanthropists that ensure that orchestral music will brighten our lives again very soon.

New Orchestra Music Performance Assessment Video Deadline……May 15, 2021 Details can be found at alabamaorchestraassociation.org

Thank you for your tireless and relentless work on behalf of our students. I am inspired by your commitment to engaging communities with the value of music.

Please know that my door is always open. Please feel free to contact me at dstevens1@una.edu.

Blessings,

Daniel Stevens

ABA: Thank You!!

Jun 10 2021

THANK YOU!!!!!! Thank you to everyone who helped to make All-State 2021 a success!! It took many hours of planning and implementation to make it happen, but the end result was five OUTSTANDING concerts from our students. Thank you for your patience as we navigated uncharted waters through this event to do everything possible to have a safe event for everyone. Thanks to the District 7 Band Directors and Meredyth Petersen who organized all the percussion needs for the bands. Thanks to our band hosts and percussion coordinators who went above and beyond to make sure the students were taken care of during the event. Thanks to the University of North Alabama Wind Symphony and Studio Lab Band and Dr. Lloyd Jones for a wonderful night of music on Friday night. And finally, Thanks to the ABA Executive team and Board of Directors for your leadership, hard work, and dedication to make this happen for our students. You are to be commended for going above and beyond the call of duty the past year to make sure that our organization met the challenges that were before us.

I write this as we are all looking at the end of a very difficult and trying year, and hopefully a year that we will NEVER repeat. But even with everything that has come our way, those in our profession have done what we always have done: we take a step back, look at the problem before us and we set a path forward for our program. Band has continued this year in many different ways, BUT IT HAS CONTINUED!!!!! Being flexible will always produce better results if we truly look for the ways that it can benefit our students.

The last 18 years of my career have been spent in service to my students and to ABA. I’ve served as Vice- Chair, Chairman, Recording Secretary, President-Elect, and now President, and will serve two more as Past President. It has been a joy of my life to serve ABA and the membership during this time. What we do is about service. First, we serve the program, school, and community in which we live and teach and pour out our passion for music into the lives of these students daily. But we must always keep in mind, it’s not about us, it’s about the students we serve, and the outcomes should ALWAYS be about them. Then, we need to actively serve in our state association to make sure that it is strong, that it has a unified voice that is heard on music education issues that affect our students. ABA is only as strong as YOU and I as the members make the organization. YOU must be involved, or it weakens both ABA and our parent group AMEA. I encourage you to make a new commitment in the coming year, to be active. Attend AMEA, All-State, MPA, District meetings and help to make YOUR organization be a voice that MUST be heard!!!

We are ABA and together we CAN do great things!!!!!!

Terry

UPCOMING ABA DATES
SUMMER CONFERENCE (JUNE 15-17, 2021) HAMPTON INN, ORANGE BEACH, ALABAMA
ALL-STATE BAND (APRIL 6-10, 2022) ARTHUR R. OUTLAW MOBILE CONVENTION CENTER, MOBILE, AL ALL-STATE BAND (APRIL 27-29 2023) VON BRAUN CENTER-HUNTSVILLE, AL
ALL-STATE BAND (APRIL 25-27, 2024) VON BRAUN CENTER-HUNTSVILLE, AL

HED: End of the COVID School Year

Jun 10 2021

 

End of the COVID School Year

Wow! What a year it has been. Music education has certainly changed over the past 15 months. One common theme that arises when talking to colleagues seems to be the loss of time. Online teaching requires extra time to prepare, present, and assess. No wonder we are exhausted. Yes, change is hard, but we have endured. We have adjusted to the new normal and are ready to move forward. Some practices that have emerged during the pandemic are worth keeping, while others, should be discarded. Here are my thoughts.

Practices to Discard
Blended learning: Can an educator be successful in teaching students face-to-face while simultaneously teaching another group of students online? I’ve seen valiant teachers struggle very successfully in blended learning environments. But despite their efforts, are the students really learning?

Online conferences: I have mixed feelings about this one. The AMEA 2021 Conference was a highlight for me. I watched great presentations, witnessed inspiring performances, and didn’t have to pay for a hotel room. All things considered, I would rather dig a little deeper into my wallet and spend a few precious days with my colleagues than sit in front of a computer screen.

Parking lot choir performances: If you do not know what I’m talking about, here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl4OoOxrgUg. This is human ingenuity at its best, but I doubt that this type of performance is what the composers intended.

Practices to Keep
Web conferencing: Everyone has become more skillful using Zoom, Google Meet, etc. This is an efficient method of communication. You can speak to large numbers of people without leaving your office and you can exit the meeting without being noticed.

Social Emotional Learning: Music education does more than develop singers who can hit the high notes and instrumentalists who perform with amazing virtuosity. As Bennett Reimer professed, music connects people to their feelings. Campaigns are growing to use the tenets of SEL as a means to assist students with their psychological needs. Music education can play an important role in healing the emotional scars caused by the pandemic.

Web resources: The number and quality of resources on the web have exploded. New resources are being developed every day. I continue to be amazed at what I am able to find.

Students recording themselves: Self-evaluation is an important part of learning. School shutdowns have forced more students to record and evaluate their own performances. This is a good thing! How can we truly understand our abilities if we do not listen to ourselves?

Visions for the Next School Year
As we return to the classroom, I’d like to share three goals for the upcoming school year. First, the HED will play a greater role in promoting professional development opportunities across the state. Our members and their institutions host many of these events. We can help them attract participants. Second, the HED will facilitate reciprocal relationships between institutions of higher education and Pk- 12 schools. We need each other, so let’s communicate! Third, COVID has taken much of the enjoyment out of the classroom. The HED will continue working on ideas to put the excitement back into teaching. One idea has been to partner with our C-NAfME chapter and develop a “Festival of Music Lesson Presentations.” That may be the spark that ignites the joy we are missing. If you have a suggestion, please share it.

In closing, find time to disconnect this summer and breathe. Next year may be the best school year ever!

AVA: Updates

Jun 10 2021

 

AVA Updates

The school year 2020-2021 will definitely be one we remember. I hope that someday we can all reflect on this year and realize how teaching in these adverse conditions has actually made us more innovative and creative problem solvers. I am amazed when I hear about the classroom activities music educators have devised and the originality that has allowed students to make music. I look forward to hearing more and celebrating your successes with you at an upcoming round table discussion.

Thank you to all the members of Alabama Vocal Association for your flexibility and grace as we all navigated together the uncharted territory known as teaching during a pandemic. We survived the virtual Fall Workshop, online All-State auditions, Solo and Ensemble, and SCPA; and were finally able to actually make music together at our abbreviated All-State festival. Congratulations to all the district and state winners of the Pat Blackwell Music Education Award, Outstanding Accompanist, and Outstanding Choral Student Awards. A highlight of our All-State festival was the presentation of the Frances P. Moss award to Dr. Carl Davis by Dr. Moss herself. Your AVA Board has spent countless hours listening, planning, and sometimes re-planning events that were meaningful and educational for your students. Hopefully, 2021-2022 will look more like a typical year. At the upcoming summer board meeting we will unpack what we learned from this year so we can plan for the coming year. If you have items that you would like the board to consider, please reach out to your District Chair.

Fall Workshop will be Friday, September 10. Our guest clinician will be Dr. Jaclyn Normandie, our high school All-State SSAA clinician, choral music educator, yoga instructor, and life coach. We will also have reading sessions, round-table discussions, and will preview the All-State music.

AMEA professional development conference will be January 20-22 in Birmingham. The deadline to submit session proposals and recordings for performances is June 1.

All-State will be March 10-12 in Birmingham. Auditions for All-State will be late October to early November.

I hope that you can take some time during summer break to take care of yourself; enjoy some downtime. This year has taken quite a toll on our students, but it has also been taxing for educators. If we have depleted our mental and creative resources, our students won’t get our best – the students deserve our best.

I look forward to hearing from you, and to seeing you at Fall Workshop. As always, if you can think of ways your board or I can better serve you, please reach out.

Enjoy your summer,

Randall

Top