Greetings Elementary Music Educators! I hope you all have had a great year! It has been a busy one for me, and I am looking forward to some rest and relaxation this summer!

This will be my last Ala Breve article as your President. My two-year term is coming to an end and I will be stepping into the role of Past President for two years to help guide our new President, Phil Wilson, as he begins his two-year term. Phil brings a passion for elementary music education and proven leadership experience to the position, and I know you will support him as he begins his term.

It has been my pleasure to serve you as President the past two years and we have seen many great things, such as continued growth in our Elementary Music Festival, two great years of In-Service Conferences, and the addition of a Facebook page. We need to continue our growth to reach more elementary music educators who are not a part of AMEA and increase our performance applications for the annual In-Service Conference.

We do have some exciting things coming up this next school year. First, the 3rd Annual East Alabama Music Workshop will be held in Auburn on August 26th from 9 AM till 1 PM. The guest speaker will be Dr. Becky Halliday from the University of Montevallo and will focus on the new Alabama Course of Study for music. The workshop is free and more information can be obtained from Dr. Rob Lyda at lydarob@me.com.

Second, our 11th Annual AMEA Elementary Music workshop will be held on Friday, October 6th at Samford University. Our clinicians will be Ericka Bridge and Vic Oakes. We have around 400 students from 40 schools committed to participate. We are excited to continue this wonderful event. We will also host a workshop the following day with Ericka Bridge at a local elementary school. More details on the workshop to come.

Lastly, the AMEA Annual Professional Development Conference will be held in Birmingham at the BJCC on January 18-20th 2018. This will be another great opportunity for professional growth and I encourage our elementary teachers to support this event. I also encourage you to submit session proposals to share your teaching ideas with other music educators. I also encourage you to submit a performance application – especially our Birmingham area schools. Information on these opportunities are on the AMEA web site at www.myamea.org.

I hope you will all support Phil and his Executive Board as they begin their new term of service this June. We look forward to serving you!

Respectfully Submitted,

Cliff Huckabee, President AMEA – Elementary Division

We just finished a very successful professional development conference in Montgomery and we are looking forward to a fabulous 2017!

For those who attended the conference, I hope you were all inspired by the clinicians and their sessions. I appreciate all our out-of-state clinicians who presented sessions including Andrea and Joey Coleman, Roger Sams, Dr. David Frego, and Dr. Georgia Newlin. I also appreciate our Alabama teachers/clinicians including Dr. Patricia Corbin from JSU, Dr. Susanne Burgess from Samford University, Dr. Rob Lyda from Auburn City Schools, Mrs. Lea Hoppe from Randolph School, Mrs. Deanna Bell from Vestavia Hills City Schools, and Kristi Howze from UMS-Wright. We also had two wonderful performances from The Montgomery Academy 5th and 6th Grade Chorus led by Ms. Meg Griffin and the Ogletree Singers led by Mr. Phil Wilson. It was a great time of professional growth.

During the general business meeting at the conference we elected our new 2017-2019 Executive Board for the Elementary Division:

• President – Phil Wilson
• President-Elect – Kelly Hollingsworth
• Hospitality – Kristi Howze
• Treasurer – Lori Zachary
• Secretary – Rob Lyda
• Past-President – Cliff Huckabee

I encourage everyone to start planning for the 2018 conference in Birmingham at the BJCC. It will be held January 18-20 and it will be an exciting time as we move to a new location. I encourage our music teachers to consider doing two things for our next conference.  First, I encourage you to submit a proposal for a session. I love to see our own music teachers sharing their ideas and passions during the conference. We learn so much from each other, so think about a topic that you feel you could share and submit. Second, I encourage those that have performing groups to submit a performance application. We are one of the largest divisions in AMEA yet we have the smallest number of performance applications each year. Let’s change that! It is a rewarding experience not only for you and your students but also for our division. It inspires and motivates us all to see quality performances from our own teachers. So, I strongly encourage our division to step up and submit proposals and performance applications for 2018! You can do both on the AMEA website: www.myamea.org.

Our 11th Annual Elementary Music Festival will be held on Friday, October 6th at Samford University. We are still in the planning stages and hope to have our two clinicians secured soon. It will also be followed by our AMEA/AOSA Joint Workshop on Saturday, October 7th. We will send out more information soon via our email list.

I also wanted to update you on other upcoming events around our state:

AOSA Spring Workshop with Artie Almeida – March 4, 2017 – Samford University

Kodaly Workshop presented by SHAKE – April 22, 2017 – Vestavia Hills Elementary East

ACDA Young Voices Festival April 28-29, 2017 at University of Alabama

Orff Certification, Samford University:  Level 1; June 19-June 30, 2017

Kodaly Certification, University of Montevallo – Levels 1, 2, & 3 – July 10-21, 2017

East Alabama General Music Workshop – Saturday, August 26, 2017

Lastly, if you are not receiving emails from the Elementary Division, please send us an email at:

elementaryamea@gmail.com

We would love to add you to our email list to keep you informed of upcoming news and events for our division. I wish everyone a great 2nd semester and do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of assistance to you.

Respectfully Submitted,

Cliff Huckabee, President

Elementary/General Division

As I type this message, we are just weeks away from our tenth annual Elementary Music Festival and our annual fall workshop on October 21st & 22nd in Birmingham. I am excited that so many of you are bringing your students to participate in this wonderful festival. We welcome back our festival directors, Ben & Kristina Sisco. They have done a fabulous job organizing and promoting our festival. We have several new schools participating, and it is going to be a great weekend for our students and teachers. Our festival will include two great clinicians, Mr. Roger Sams and Mrs. Vicki Portis. I am excited to hear the two fabulous children’s choirs perform on Friday evening at the beautiful Wright Center on the campus of Samford University. We thank Samford University for their support and generosity in making this festival possible. We also thank Dr. Suzanne Burgess for her partnership with us. Mr. Roger Sams will also present the following day at our Saturday Fall workshop at Vestavia Hills Elementary East from 9 AM to 3 PM. It will be a fabulous weekend to celebrate elementary music education!

If I don’t get to see you at the fall workshop, I hope I will see you at our January Conference. The 2017 AMEA Conference will be held in Montgomery for the last time before making the move to Birmingham at the BJCC, and this is a conference you will not want to miss. Pre-registration is now open at http://www.myamea.org/amea-conference/2017-conference-registration/ and you can reserve your hotel room at the Renaissance or Embassy Suites from there as well. Our conference this year is going to have a wide range of sessions that will include something for everyone.

We welcome Andrea Coleman as one of our main clinicians. She will present several sessions on Thursday & Friday along with a special fun evening session on Friday night. She was one of our festival clinicians last year, and she has some great sessions to share with us. We also welcome back Roger Sams from “Music is Elementary” along with David Frego and Georgia Newton as our other main clinicians. They will be presenting throughout the conference. David Frego will also have an evening fun session Thursday night on Dalcroze.
We will also hear from several of our own elementary division teachers including Lea Hoppe, Dr. Rob Lyda, and Deanna Bell. They will also be joined by Dr. Patricia Corbin of Jacksonville State University, and Dr. Suzanne Burgess of Samford University. We will have two elementary choral performances on Friday afternoon at 1:15 PM in the MPAC featuring the Montgomery Academy 5th & 6th Grade Chorus, under the direction of Meg Griffin, and The Ogletree Elementary Singers, under the direction of Phil Wilson. Other sessions of interest will be presented by Quaver Music and ChordBuddy. This will be one of our best conferences yet! I want you to be a part of the action so get pre-registered today!

If you are not receiving emails from the elementary division, I would love to add you to our email list. Just send me an email and I will add you to our email list: elementaryamea@gmail.com

I look forward to seeing you and learning together at our upcoming events.

Respectfully Submitted,

Cliff Huckabee

Upcoming Events
10th Annual Elementary Music Festival – Samford University Birmingham, AL
October 21
Fall Joint AMEA/AOSA Workshop – Vestavia Hills Elementary East Birmingham, AL
October 22
AOSA 2016 Professional Development Conference Atlantic City, NJ
November 2-5
NAfME 2016 National In-Service Conference Grapevine, TX
November 10-13
AMEA 2017 In-Service Conference Montgomery, AL
January 19-21

I hope this message finds every one well after a restful summer. I am starting my second year as the President of the Elementary/General Division, and I look forward to serving you once again. Phil Wilson will continue as President-Elect preparing to take over as President in summer of 2017. Ben and Kristina Sisco will continue as our Music Festival Directors along with the rest of the Elementary Division Executive Board and District Officers.

Our 10th Annual Elementary Music Festival is coming up on Friday, October 21st, 2016 at Samford University. We have over 45 schools committed to participate totaling about 450 4th & 5th grade students from all over the state. We will have Roger Sams and Vicki Portis as clinicians, and we thank Dr. Susanne Burgess from Samford University for partnering with us and hosting the festival at Samford.

The following day from 9 AM till 3 PM (Saturday, October 22nd), we will have a joint AMEA/AOSA teacher workshop at a local elementary school in the Birmingham area. We are still working out all the details and we will email out registration information once it is available. If you are not receiving emails from the Elementary Division, please send us an email at: elementaryamea@gmail.com and we will gladly add you to our email list.

Finally, our AMEA Annual In-service will be Jan 19th – 21st, 2017 at the Renaissance Hotel & Conference Center in Montgomery. This will be our last year in Montgomery as we make the move to Birmingham in 2018. We are excited to have some outstanding clinicians and exhibitors this year. First, we will have Andrea Coleman with us on Thursday and Friday. She will also do a fun evening session on that Friday night. We will also have Roger Sams, Georgia Newlin, and David Frego from Music is Elementary, and they will present throughout the In-Service and will have a Thursday night fun session. Music is Elementary will also have a booth in the exhibit hall as last year. We will also have two elementary performances in the concert hall along with other sessions of interest to our elementary music teachers. I am very excited about the 2017 In-service and encourage everyone to attend! Please be sure to pre-register and book your hotel rooms at the special conference rate! You can find links to do both online at www.alabamamea.org.

I am honored to serve our elementary/general division as President, and I look forward to seeing you at one of more of our upcoming events!

Respectfully submitted,

Cliff Huckabee

Teachers,

We are in the final stretch of our school year. Many of you are probably preparing for end of the year performances and trying to get those last few lessons in before school is out. We wish all of you the very best as you finish up your school year!

We have exciting news about our 10th Annual Elementary Music Festival. We are pleased to announce that we will continue our association with Samford University as they host our 10th Annual Elementary Music Festival. It will be Friday, October 21st and our clinicians will be Roger Sams and Vicki Portis. Many of you will remember Roger Sams from our 2016 AMEA In-service. He presented several sessions and also brought us some amazing materials through his partnership with “Music is Elementary.” Vicki Portis is no stranger to our Elementary Division. She is a world-class elementary music educator who was just recently inducted in the AMEA Hall of Fame. She was also our first clinician for our festival, so it is fitting that she returns to celebrate our 10th year. Our festival directors, Ben and Kristina Sisco, have emailed out information about the festival, and we are looking to have around 450 students participate in this special 10th year anniversary music festival.

We also are in the planning stages of our Annual Fall Workshop following the festival on Saturday, October 22nd. We hope to have both our festival clinicians share from their wealth of knowledge of elementary music methods. We will keep you informed of the place and time of this workshop as we finalize these details.

There are several summer opportunities for professional development that I want to share with you as well. We have Orff Level I and Level II Certification Courses being offered at Samford University on June 20 – July 1. We also have the Kodaly Levels 1 & 2 Certifications classes at Vestavia Hills Elementary School East hosted by Deanna Bell on July 11-22. Lastly, we have the 2nd Annual East Alabama Music Workshop being held at Grace UMC in Auburn on August 27th. We hope you will take advantage of these opportunities to grow as a music educator. If you have any questions about any of these workshops, please contact us at elementaryamea@gmail.com and we will be glad to forward you specific information on any of these three workshops.

Lastly, if you are not receiving emails from our Elementary Division, please send us an email at elementaryamea@gmail.com and we will be glad to add you to our email list. We want to keep in touch with you, so sign up today for our email list. Again, I wish all of you the very best as you finish this school year!

Sincerely,
Cliff Huckabee, President
AMEA Elementary Division

As I type this message, we are just weeks away from our tenth annual Elementary Music Festival and our annual fall workshop on October 9th & 10th in Birmingham. I am excited that so many of you are bringing your students to participate in this wonderful festival. We also welcome our new festival directors, Ben & Kristina Sisco. They have done a fabulous job organizing and promoting our festival. We have several new schools participating, and it is going to be a great weekend for our students and teachers. Our festival will include two great clinicians, Mrs. Tiffany English and Mrs. Andrea Coleman. I am excited to hear the two fabulous children’s choirs perform on Friday evening at beautiful Wright Center on the campus of Samford University. We thank Samford University for their support and generosity in making this festival possible. We also thank Dr. Moya Nordlund for her partnership with us. She has retired from Samford but has continued to work with us to coordinate this year’s festival. Mrs. Tiffany English will also present the following day at our Saturday Fall workshop at Gwin Elementary School in Hoover. It will be a fabulous weekend to celebrate elementary music education!

If I don’t get to see you at the fall workshop, I hope I will see you at our January Conference. The 2016 AMEA Conference will be held in Montgomery again this year, and this is a conference you will not want to miss. Pre-registration is now open at www.alabamamea.org and you can reserve your hotel room at the Renaissance or Embassy Suites as well. Our conference this year is going to have a wide range of sessions that will include something for everyone.

We welcome Denise Gagne from “Theme & Variations” to Alabama as one of our main clinicians. She will present several sessions on Thursday & Friday along with a special fun evening folk dance session on Thursday night. She was with us many years back in Tuscaloosa, and I use many of her resources in my own classroom. We also welcome Roger Sams from “Music is Elementary” as our second main clinician. He will be presenting throughout the conference and will also have an evening fun session on Friday night. Both Roger Sams and Denise Gagne will have booths in our exhibit hall bringing more elementary music resources to our exhibits.

We will also hear from several of our own elementary division teachers including Tiffani Stricklin, Kelly Hollingsworth, and Jeanette Shorey. We will have two elementary choral sessions following the two keynote presentations on Thursday and Friday mornings with the Boaz Intermediate Honor Choir, under the direction of Miriam Richey, performing for us on Thursday; and The Kitty Stone Elementary Singers, under the direction of Lisa Gillespie & Cheryl Wright, performing on Friday. Other sessions will be presented by Quaver Music, ChordBuddy, and many more. This will be one of our best conferences yet! I want you to be a part of the action so get pre-registered today!

If you are not receiving emails from the elementary division, I would love to add you to our email list. Just send me an email and I will add you to our email list:

elementaryamea@gmail.com

I look forward to seeing you and learning together at our upcoming events.

Respectfully Submitted,
Cliff Huckabee