2019 GMEA Newsletter | December by Georgia Music Educators Association

GEORGIA MUSIC EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION

N e ws l e t t e r

d ec E M B E R

2019

"Education is the most powerful weapon which yo u c a n u s e t o c h a n g e t h e w o rl d . "

Nelson Mandela

Inspiring Truth for Teachers

IN THIS ISSUE

DECember

AROUND THE STATE

DISTRICT 4 DISTRICT 5 DISTRICT 6 DISTRICT 9 DISTRICT 10 DISTRICT 11 DISTRICT 13 YEAR OF RETIREMENT OPPORTUNITIES NASA STEM NAFME UPDATE

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

AROUND THE STATE

KR Events and News from GMEA's 14 Districts 2

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

DISTRICT four

honor. Ms. Davis has taught for fifteen years and, prior to teaching at Grady High School (fall of 2019), was the Lead Middle School Teacher for APS. Congratulations to Krissi Davis for this remarkable achievement.

• The Dekalb County School District (DCSD) in GMEA District IV held their High School Honor Orchestra and Seventh and Eighth Grade Advanced Honor Orchestra event on Saturday, November 9th at Dunwoody High School. They rehearsed from 9 a.m. for a 4 PM concert. The High School Honor Orchestra Guest Conductor was Tania Maxwell Clements, Principal Senior Lecturer of Viola and Violin at Georgia State University. The DCSD High School Coordinator was Mr. Philip Barnard of Dunwoody High School. The Seventh and Eighth Grade Advanced Honor Orchestra Guest Conductor was Juan Ramirez, violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Coordinator of the DCSD Middle School Honor Orchestra is Mrs. Kendra Augustin-Felando of Druid Hills Middle School. The Seventh and Eighth grade program included selections by Bach, Tchaikovsky, and contemporary music by Richard Meyer. Mrs. Maxwell directed the High School Honor Orchestra through the Sentimental Sarabande from Britten’s Simple Symphony, Heart of Fire by Bernofsky, and a Handel Concerto Grosso.

• Stephen Lawrence, orchestra teacher at North Atlanta High School, was one of the top three finalists and High School winner for the 2018-19 APS Excellence in Teaching Award. Congratulations to Mr. Lawrence for being recognized as an outstanding educator STEPHEN and among the very finest in your school system.

• Quandrell Claybrooks has been named the Music Specialist/Choral Director at Harper-Archer Elementary School, the new arts integration school in the Atlanta Public School System.

DISTRICT SIX • Congratulations to Kelly Gallman who was chosen "Teacher of the Year" for Sandy Creek High School in Tyrone. Mrs. Gallman has been the orchestra teacher at Sandy Creek for the past four years.

DISTRICT FIVE

RISSI DAVIS

LAWRENCE

• Krissi Davis, orchestra teacher from Grady High School, is the 2019- 20 winner of the Excellence in Teaching for Atlanta Public Schools (APS). The Excellence in Teaching Award is the APS moniker for what other systems term as their Teacher of the Year

KELLY GALLMAN

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

AROUND THE STATE

D11: SECOND ANNUAL HONOR ORCHESTRA

DISTRICT Nine • Dr. John M. Broman, director of choral activities at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega was presented with the 2019 Weston H, Noble Award during the Homecoming Concert at Luther College in Decorah, IA, Sunday, October 6 in the Center for Faith and Life. Dr. Broman was the 16th recipient of the Noble Award given for “outstanding achievement in the field of choral music.” Though Luther graduates about 70 music majors a year, Dr. Broman may be the only award winner thus far graduating from Luther with a degree other than music. He taught French and coached athletics for three years before beginning music studies at the University of Iowa where he received a B.M in voice, an M.A. in choral conducting, and a D.M.A. in choral conducting. Dr. Broman was also attending Homecoming for his 50th year class reunion.

DISTRICT Ten • The Evans High School Competition Band, under the direction of Zachary Bradley and Anthony Alberti, had a very successful end to the marching season. This year’s competition show “I Had a Paintbox” earned straight superior ratings and Grand Champion awards at both the Marching Mustang Invitational at South Effingham High School and the East Georgia Marching Championships at Statesboro High School. • Stallings Island Middle School from Martinez, GA, was recently discovered by a music producer based in New York City. Ms. Rebekkah Nordan, the director at SIMS, received a series of phone calls after the producer discovered a recording of the SIMS Chorus giving a live performance

as part of a different music festival. Composer Greg Gilpin was on the board of directors who initially invited the chorus to perform as part of his spotlight concert at Carnegie Hall. This trip is a milestone for the Stallings Island Middle School Chorus and will hopefully be the first of many performances given by this program in prominent venues around the nation.

DISTRICT eleven • On October 26th, 2019, District 11 held its second annual Honor Orchestra at Central High School in Macon, Georgia. Students from The Academy for Classical Education (Rachael Smith, director), Howard High School (John Sweat), Howard Middle School (Jonathan Fleischman), Central High School (Jaris Tolber), and Miller Middle School (Kuei-Fan Chan) participated in the event. The high school orchestra was directed by Nathaniel Parker, Director of Orchestral Studies at Kennesaw State University, and the middle school orchestra directed by Eunice Kang from Clarke County High School. In addition, the Vineville Academy Orchestra, under the direction of Ms. Patty Baser, performed at the event. As a small district, with a limited number of schools offering orchestra programs, we are excited as our Middle Georgia orchestra programs continue to grow and thrive.

DISTRICT thirteen • Summerour Middle School Orchestra will be performing for Sounds of the Season at the Mall of Georgia on December 6, 2019 at 12:00PM. They will be performing holiday music at the Dining Pavilion to spread the spirit of the season to the public. The Summerour Middle Orchestra is led by director, Rebecca Huong.

EVANS HIGH SCHOOL COMPETITION BAND

REMINDER

ADMINISTRATORS HAVE DISCRETIONARY FUNDS TO HELP PAY FOR IN-SERVICE CONFERENCE. DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T BE AFRAID TO ASK IF THEY WILL PAY FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE AT IN-SERVICE

PLEASE VISIT THE SITE FOR INSTRUC TIONS ON HOW TO JOIN AND RENEW 5

NEWSLETTER | SEPTEMBER DECEMBER

YEAR OF RETIREMENT

Leslae Dennison

has been a band director in the Griffin-Spalding County School System for 31 years. She taught at the high school level for seven years and the following twenty-four years at the middle school level. In addition to band, Mrs. Dennison started a guitar program at her school in 2009 in an effort to expose more students to instrumental music who may have never considered joining the traditional band program. This program, along with the band, continues to thrive. Mrs. Dennison holds a Masters of Music Education degree and was a National Board Certified Teacher in Music from 2008 through 2018. Her musical influence in her community has included church orchestra director, church youth leader, and directing several youth bands and choirs. A lifelong musician, Mrs. Dennison was a member of the Tara Winds Adult Community Band for twenty-four years, and she continues to perform in churches and community groups. She wishes to express her gratitude to the music teachers and mentors in her life who inspired, encouraged and supported her, and especially to her husband of twenty-four years, David. 6

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

YEAR OF RETIREMENT

Dennis Naughton

Dennis L. Naughton is retiring from Flowery Branch High School where he has

been the director since 2010. Prior to Flowery Branch, he spent five years as the director of Bands at North Springs high School, Riverwood High School, and spent a year and a half as the assistant band director at Milton High School. He started his teaching career at East Coweta High School where he spent the first eleven years of his career. He has been awarded the National Band Associations citation of excellence five times, won several grand championships, and his concert bands have consistently been given superior ratings at large group performance evaluation. At Flowery Branch High school, his wind symphony performed at the KSU concert invitational, The Music for All Southeastern regional concert festival, University of Georgia Janfest, and the University of Alabama honor band festival. He has given several clinics at GMEA and remained active as a member of GMEA serving most recently as the 14th district chair. He remains active as an adjudicator in Georgia and South Carolina and hopes to remain active throughout the region. His wife Christy is the band director at Northwestern Middle School and will continue teaching. She is now a one year survivor of breast cancer. In retirement, Mr. Naughton hopes to also go back to his roots of teaching percussion and would love to help any program who wants to have a great percussion ensemble. He is also looking to help anyone who may have a steel drum band that would like an instructor. His final concert will be on Sunday May 3, at 4:00pm at the Venue at Friendship Springs in Braselton, Georgia. He wishes to thank mentors such as Wallace Conrath, Mike Back, Jack Bell, Randall Coleman, Tam Easterwood, Dr, David Gregory and Alfred Watkins for their guidance and mentorship throughout his career. 7

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM You may have noticed an influx of emails from the GMEA office, which mostly means from your communications liaison. That is because we want to make certain you receive anything and everything regarding grant, award, and scholarship opportunities for you and your students. We are on the lookout for prospects such as these that are of no cost to our members and then we want to make sure to you have every bit of time possible to apply or prepare your student. I am very sorry for the extra emails in an already too demanding world. I wish you the best of luck, however, in your grant and award endeavors.

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

M DR. SCRUGGS

VIEW

OPPORTUNITIES

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

ST Georgia educator, LAURIE ORTH, has been residing in Evans County since 2012. As an independent general music contractor, her students served the community in various capacities (as the church choir, and by performing community service shows at a local retirement home). Laurie attended the Space Educators Conference at Kennedy Space Center, the International Space Station R & D conference, the Georgia NASA STEM educators conference, the Georgia STEM and STEAM Forum and the Global Women in STEM Leadership Conference in Atlanta. The pinnacle was being chosen by the social media team at NASA headquarters to attend The International Astronautical Congress in Washington DC and have a behind-the-scenes

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

TEM tour and presentations at NASA headquarters by several of their executive administrators. Ms. Orth published a book for advanced recorder beginners called Rocket Recorder was because she could not find the teaching material that she needed for her students. Orth said that the NASA STEM engagement website had space lessons for every other discipline including art, but they only had one thing about music- and it was a â&#x20AC;&#x153;space musicalâ&#x20AC;? for high school students about the solar system. Because she wanted recorder music for advanced beginners based on space exploration, Orth did the work involved to publish a book filled with music appropriate for a STEM/STEAM class and tested it with her students.

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

TO: FROM:

NAfME Division Presidents Michael J. Blakeslee

SUBJECT:

NAfME Monthly Update Report

NAfME UPDATE REPORT

Dear NAfME Division Presidents, Dear NAfME Division Presidents, Included below is your NAfME Monthly Update These monthly updates areasintended Included below is your NAfME Monthly Update Report.Report. These monthly updates are intended a tool to help as a tool to help division leaders disseminate key information regarding NAfME programmatic division leaders disseminate key information regarding NAfME programmatic activities to state leaders. We activities to state leaders. We strongly recommend that division leaders share the content of strongly recommend that division leaders share the content of these reports, as they feel most appropriate. these reports, as they feel most appropriate. I hope that you and your colleagues continue to I hope thatresource you and your colleagues continueplease to findfeel this free resource valuable. Asoffice always,atplease feel free to find this valuable. As always, to contact my any time if I can contact my office at any time if I can be of assistance. be of assistance. Sincerely, Sincerely,

Mike Blakeslee Mike Blakesley AWARDS, HONORS, AND RECOGNITIONS • 2019 NAfME Student Composers Competition: The Student Composer winners for 2019 have been announced and plans are underway for the Young Composers’ Concert at the 2019 National Conference. o 2019 sponsor: European American Musical Alliance (EAMA) o Applications closed: March 29, 2019 o Total number of applications: 160 i. Compared to 167 in 2018 • 2019 NAfME Electronic Music Composition Competition o 2019 sponsor: WURRLY o Applications closed: April 12, 2019 o Total number of applications: 91 i.Compared to 61 in 2018 • 2019 George N Parks o 23 nominations o Band Council is currently reviewing applications

ADVOCACY AND PUBLIC POLICY • Advocacy Leadership Force: As of September 2019, every state MEA has an Advocacy Leadership Force (ALF) representative identified. ALF members’ contact information is available on the NAfME website. • Title IV, Part A Funding: Senate appropriators have published $1.22 billion for Title IV Part A funding for FY20. This is an increase from FY19 funding, but not as large as what the House offered on Hill Day - $1.32 billion. The NAfME policy team expects the final number to be close to the Senate number, which is a huge win given the current funding situation on Capitol Hill (i.e. border wall and defense). Many thanks to our amazing Hill Day participants from our states; their advocacy helped us continue to see increases in Title IV-A funding year over year.

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

EVENTS • 2019 All-National Honor Ensembles o Application Breakdown: - 2019 ANHE Concert Band: 369 - 2019 ANHE Symphony Orchestra: 438 - 2019 ANHE Mixed Choir: 654 - 2019 ANHE Jazz Ensemble: 54 - 2019 ANHE Guitar Ensemble: 46 - 2019 ANHE Modern Band: 30 - 2019 ANHE Concert Band & 2019 ANHE Symphony Orchestra: 227 - Misc (Harp, Piano, etc.), all ensembles: 14 o 555 students were selected for the All-National Honor Ensembles: - Symphony Orchestra: 121 - Concert Band: 119 - Mixed Choir: 240 - Guitar Ensembles: 39 - Jazz Ensemble: 20 o 12 JALC Students - Modern Band: 16 • 2019 In Service Conference: REGISTRATION to date: o 422 registered attendees (114 ahead of last year’s pace) o 14 registered conference exhibitors o 40 registered ANHE exhibitors o 575 ANHE Student Registrations

GOVERNANCE • National and Division Elections: The National Nominating Committee is reviewing member submitted questions for the National President-Elect candidates to address during the National Conference Town Hall, November 8, 2019. Candidate information (National and Division) is available online at https://nafme.org/about/2020-nafme-elections/. • Unconscious Bias Study: The National Executive Board committed to have “Cook Ross be hired to consult and do an evaluation of the association related to unconscious bias.” As part of these ongoing efforts, NAfME and Cook Ross have undertaken 3 surveys designed to engage NAfME members, lapsed members, and non-members, in efforts to learn more about possible bias issues within our association(s). The survey response period concluded in mid-September, and Cook Ross is now analyzing the results for inclusion in their final report, to be presented to NAfME governance in the fall.

MEMBERSHIP • Corporate Membership: o 6 New Corporate Members to-date for FY 19-20: Romeo Music, mPowered Educator, LLC, Oxford University Press Sheet Music, Malmark, Inc., Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, Songs Children Sing, LLC

NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER

MEMBER CATEGORY

MEMBERSHIP COUNT September 30, 2019

September 30, 2018

ACTIVE MEMBERS

42,043

43,811

RETIRED MEMBERS

4,440

3,903

COLLEGIATE MEMBERS

4,062

3,906

• NOTE: September 2019 state dues remittance totaled $204,362.50 vs. $214,695.50 for September 2018. At the end of September, however, NAfME had approximately $12,500 in membership dues checks on hand that had not yet been processed. These checks will be processed in their entirety by October 15, 2019 and, states will receive their share with the November state dues remittance. • Renewal Season: NAfME staff continues to handle a high volume of fall renewals and questions stemming from the CRM change, both from members and from state MEA executives. We continue working to clean-up a percentage of data issues stemming from the transfer of the old CRM system into Fonteva. NAfME has retained significant additional resources in order to ensure that member needs are being met in a timely fashion.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT • 2020 Call for Research Proposals: The Call for Research Session Proposals for the 2020 Conference went live on Friday, September 13th. The call will be open through February, 2020. The call for K-12 Session Proposals will open in October. • Library of Congress Grant Work: The Writing Teams for the 2019/2020 Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources project have been identified and held their first orientation call this month. Writing team members will join with Dr. Johanna Siebert, project manager, and Library of Congress staff, in October to begin their research for their curricular units. Writers hail from Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and Virginia.

PUBLICATIONS • This month’s Music Educators Journal is a special focus issue dedicated to Popular Music. • This Month’s Teaching Music magazine contains articles on the Teaching with Primary Sources project with the Library of Congress, composer diversity, music as reflection, fundraising, and more.

TECHNOLOGY • Membership Management System Update: Communications with state MEA Executives regarding data clean-up and reporting needs are ongoing. Work continues to bring every facet of the system to full capacity.