Hello, all! I come to you from the Mariott Crystal Gateway hotel in Arlington, VA, where I am getting ready to meet up with Justine Dolorfino, Brigid Moran, and Andrew Ritenour to live-blog MENC’s Music Education Week! While I wait, I want to give you a brief update of what’s on the agenda for the next few days. Don’t forget, thanks to SoundTree, you can catch all the updates at the Music Education Week Landing Page.
Welcome From Music Ed Week!
SoundTree to Sponsor LiveBlog From Music Ed Week
I am pleased to announce that, for the second year in a row, MusicEdMajor.net will be live-blogging from MENC’s Music Education Week in Washington D.C. from June 25-29. This event will be the 4th live-blog here at MusicEdMajor.net, and for this event, we are pulling out all the stops. We have created a live-blogging team of four people, and are extremely excited to announce sponsorship from SoundTree to help provide you with live updates throughout the event with wireless broadband access.
Read More…
MusicForAll Summer Symposium
I’m excited to announce that starting today, Ohio CMENC President Kelsey Kordella will be live-blogging from the 2010 MusicForAll Summer Symposium on behalf of MusicEdMajor.net! Kelsey is entering her senior year at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinatti, and will be attending the conference all week long. Stay tuned to the MusicForAll Summer Symposium Landing Page here at MusicEdmajor.net for the live-blog, and be sure to follow Kelsey on Twitter at @KelseyK89. She’ll be updating using the hash-tag #mfacamp during the event, as well.
Collegiate Leadership Academy at MENC’s Music Ed Week
MENC has been planning for it’s 2010 Music Education Week in Washington, D.C. since last year’s event concluded. Music Ed Week is a week of advocacy, networknig, and professional development in the heart of the nation’s capital. I had the opportunity to attend last year, and was extremely pleased with my experience. The professional development portion of the week was done through “academies” in different concentrations (music technology, performance, jazz, research). The specialized academies were a wonderful way to separate the fantastic sessions that were presented.
The preparations for Music Ed Week 2010 (June 24-29, 2010) have begun in earnest over the past few weeks. MENC recently announced that housing and registration for the conference is open, and on Tuesday, they sent information out regarding a new academy for this year’s event, the “Collegiate Leadership Academy.” This academy is geared specifically towards collegiate members of MENC, and has sessions geared specifically towards future music educators. The (tentative) list of sessions includes:
- “Hero Training: How to Harness Your Super Powers” with Milt Allen, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston
- “Policy and Practice: What Does this Mean and Why Should I Care?” with Lynn Brinckmeyer, Texas State University, San Marcos
- “Nine Liberating Habits of Change” with Scott Shuler (president, MENC), Connecticut Department of Education, Hartford
- “Using Technology to Keep Sane” with Jim Frankel, SoundTree, Melville, NY
- “Can I Do This for Thirty Years?” with Jack Elgin, Oscar Smith High School, Chesapeake, VA
Additionally, registration for Music Ed Week grants you admission to many other fantastic concerts and advocacy events over the course of the week. The other academies that are being offered this year are:
- Choral
- General Music K-12 Technology (keynote by Amy Burns)
- Instrumental, “IN-Ovations” (Teaching techniques and opportunities for teachers of non-traditional curricula)
- Jazz
- Marching Music (registration includes ticket to DCI Show)
- NACWPI (National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors)
- New Teachers
Attendance at this conference last year was a very enjoyable experience for me, and one that I would strongly suggest you try to gain. If at all possible, try to find a way to get to Washington, D.C. between June 24 and 29 for this wonderful event! Hopefully, I will also be “live-blogging” the event this year, just as I did last year! Stay tuned for more information regarding this.
Are you already going to Music Ed Week? Let me know in a comment, and we can try to find a time to meet up!
REMINDER: Updates From Midwest
Hey all, don’t forget that I’ll be updating from the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic tomorrow and Friday as often as I can! Unfortunately, Midwest doesn’t offer wireless internet in all areas of McCormick Place, so I may not be able to update as often as I want, but I’ll do my best.
You can find the live-stream at the special Midwest landing page that I created here on the site. If you have any comments/questions, feel free to post them, as well; I’ll do my best to bring you answers!
Conference Season
It’s been quiet here at MusicEdMajor.net since the school year got into full-swing! I have a good amount of posts that I would love to write, and am just struggling to find the time to get them up! However, that does not mean that this website is going to turn out to be a flop; there’s plenty left to talk about, and what better a time/place to start than in everyone’s favorite season, conference season!
That’s right, with a few major Music Educator’s conferences coming up in the next month or so, I am back to bring you all the information I possibly can (which may not be much, depending on my ability to get a wireless signal in the conference centers!). I will be attending the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic from December 17th through the 19th in Chicago, and the Florida Music Educators’ Association (FMEA) conference from January 6th-9th in Tampa. Both of these events look to be great experiences, and I look forward to sharing the wealth of information I come across with all of you!
I have created special landing pages here on the website for Midwest and FMEA, where I will have a live-blog going. For now, the live-blogs are both open and live, and are pulling in data from the Twitter hashtags associated with the events. Comments are moderated, but I’ll check back frequently to publish anything you have to add, and I will be checking by the minute once the events begin!
Additinally, stay tuned for updates on the collegiate component of MENC’s Anaheim Conference in March; more details on this should be available in the near future!
It’s an exciting time of year! Will you be attending Midwest or FMEA? Leave a comment in this post or in the appropriate live-blog, and we can organize a meet-up!
Front Page Photo Credit: JoshC