Creating Transparency and Clarity in Your Ensemble

Have you ever wondered what causes a lack of clarity and how to fix it? This session will help you identify clarity issues faster and resolve them more efficiently while providing feedback to help your students gain ownership in the process.

The Art of Self-Evaluation: A Process to Determine Where You Currently Stand

This session will take attendees through a safe and informative process of self-evaluation to determine current realities of your ensemble and your skill as a rehearsal technician.You can’t rehearse what you can’t diagnose. Self-evaluation isn’t about judgment; it’s about clarity and progress.

Let’s Compose a Beautiful Warm-Up Chorale for Your Group!

Understand what makes a warm-up chorale musically effective and learn how to compose one collaboratively with students. Attendees will leave with a ready-to-use chorale framework that they can adapt for use with different ensembles and talent levels.

Using Current Technology to Get Your Ensemble in Tune and in Time

In this clinic, we’ll explore the available technologies, including the Tonal Energy Tuner, Harmony Director, and various amplified metronomes. We’ll guide you on how to utilize these tools to teach your children to discern if they’re in tune or in time without your direct intervention. Additionally, we’ll discuss approaches to tuning within a musical piece using drone maps and other techniques to assist students in aligning chords and melodies in terms of tuning.

See. Build. Teach. Sustain.

A Four Part Series for Rebuilding Music Programs
Rebuilding a music program is about more than increasing enrollment or preparing the next concert. It requires educators to see the students in front of them, build a culture where they belong, teach the musical skills they need, and establish systems that allow the program to thrive. This four part professional development series gives music educators practical, student centered strategies for rebuilding programs through access, excellence, belonging, and sustainable growth.

See the Students: Assessing Your Program and Starting Where You Are

Successful rebuilding begins by seeing students clearly. Directors must resist comparing the current program to what it used to be or what neighboring schools have. Participants will examine enrollment, student needs, school culture, available resources, community perceptions, and barriers to participation. Directors will learn to identify immediate priorities, establish a clear vision, and develop a practical rebuilding plan that responds to the needs of their students and school community while maintaining high expectations for musical excellence.

See. Build. Teach. Sustain.

A Four Part Series for Rebuilding Music Programs
Rebuilding a music program is about more than increasing enrollment or preparing the next concert. It requires educators to see the students in front of them, build a culture where they belong, teach the musical skills they need, and establish systems that allow the program to thrive. This four part professional development series gives music educators practical, student centered strategies for rebuilding programs through access, excellence, belonging, and sustainable growth.

Build the Culture: Recruitment, Visibility, and Belonging

Students are more likely to join and remain in a program when they feel seen, valued, and connected. This session explores continuous recruitment, personal invitations from current students, social media, relationships with feeder programs, school partnerships, and accessible entry points for new musicians. Participants will also consider how rehearsal culture, representation, traditions, and student leadership influence belonging, retention, and ownership.

Repertoire should help students grow, not merely prove what they can already do. This session examines how thoughtful programming can develop music literacy, strengthen technique, build confidence, reflect students’ identities, and engage audiences. Participants will explore ways to balance challenge and accessibility, sequence repertoire across a semester, teach unfamiliar musical traditions responsibly, and create performances that demonstrate growth without lowering musical standards.

See. Build. Teach. Sustain.

A Four Part Series for Rebuilding Music Programs
Rebuilding a music program is about more than increasing enrollment or preparing the next concert. It requires educators to see the students in front of them, build a culture where they belong, teach the musical skills they need, and establish systems that allow the program to thrive. This four part professional development series gives music educators practical, student centered strategies for rebuilding programs through access, excellence, belonging, and sustainable growth.

Teach the Music: Programming for the Ensemble You Have and the One You Are Building

Repertoire should help students grow, not merely prove what they can already do. This session examines how thoughtful programming can develop music literacy, strengthen technique, build confidence, reflect students’ identities, and engage audiences. Participants will explore ways to balance challenge and accessibility, sequence repertoire across a semester, teach unfamiliar musical traditions responsibly, and create performances that demonstrate growth without lowering musical standards.

See. Build. Teach. Sustain.

A Four Part Series for Rebuilding Music Programs
Rebuilding a music program is about more than increasing enrollment or preparing the next concert. It requires educators to see the students in front of them, build a culture where they belong, teach the musical skills they need, and establish systems that allow the program to thrive. This four part professional development series gives music educators practical, student centered strategies for rebuilding programs through access, excellence, belonging, and sustainable growth.

Sustain the Program: Moving from Survival to Lasting Growth

One successful concert does not create a sustainable music program. Lasting growth requires systems that support student leadership, family engagement, advocacy, community partnerships, recruitment, and consistent visibility. Participants will develop strategies for strengthening retention, communicating the program’s impact, cultivating administrative support, and creating meaningful opportunities beyond the concert cycle. Each educator will leave with a practical framework for moving their program from survival toward stability and lasting growth.

Creating Life-Changing Experiences for Students

This session explores movement in connection with music — and how sharing what we feel about the music transforms the way students experience our classrooms. Built around three pillars — passion, empathy, and contribution — participants will leave with practical strategies and ways to create a little magic for their students every day.

Conducting That Inspires

Conducting is the perfect vehicle for sharing how we feel about music. In this hands-on session, participants take turns on the podium with a live string ensemble, exploring how gesture can convey emotion and musical ideas rather than just the beat. We’ll work on connecting our own feelings about the music to what our hands, face, and body communicate — and watch how the ensemble’s sound and spirit transform in response. Teachers will leave with practical conducting tools that deepen the connection between themselves, the music, and their students.

Sound and Silence as Simple as That! Composition for Everyone

Dive into the world of composition using simple sound and silence, and many subdivisions! Great for all ages, with or without instruments and for all levels of reading rhythm, from K-12th Grade. We’ll move from iconic notation to composition with creative sight reading, collaboration, as well as a whole lot of fun and brain activity. Come see how easy it is to create & build literacy with your students.

Talking & Writing About Music: From Sound to Words

In this hands-on workshop, music educators will explore fun, approachable ways to help students read, write, and talk about music using the elements of music. Through listening and collaborative writing, participants discover how musical vocabulary helps students describe what they hear and make meaningful connections to the music. You’ll leave with practical, classroom-ready strategies that help all learners find the words for their musical thinking.

The Thinking Music Classroom: Developing Habits of Mind through Active Music Making

The best music classrooms don’t just teach students what to play—they teach students how to think. Through collaborative rhythm creation, layered ensemble music making, and intentional reflection on the Habits of Mind, participants will discover how authentic music making develops executive functioning, creative and critical thinking, learner agency, and independent musicianship. Leave with practical, ready-to-use ideas that help students become thoughtful musicians and lifelong learners.

Where Ideas Come to Play: Imagine, Create, Compose!

Music thrives when learners are invited to imagine, create, and make meaning together. Step into a music-making playground where every idea matters and every learner belongs. In this interactive session, participants will explore, improvise, and compose across all levels of experience. Grounded in learner-centered practices, we’ll move from simple sparks to fully realized music, modeling how voice, choice, and imagination cultivate ownership and deepen musical understanding.

Music Education: Its Impact and Future

Music education plays a critical role in developing creative, collaborative, and engaged learners. As schools continue to navigate changing educational priorities, music educators must clearly articulate the value of their programs and their impact on student success. This keynote examines the enduring importance of music education, the trends shaping its future, and practical approaches to sustaining and strengthening music programs.