The School of Music and Dance is grateful to its donors, friends, and supporters who help sustain its excellent programs in music and dance.
Through specialized faculty/student contact, the use of technology, an international programmatic focus, and our relationship with community, regional, and national organizations, the School of Music and Dance provides career development opportunities, enhances critical thinking abilities, and nurtures new generations of artists, choreographers, teachers, scholars, and other professionals. The faculty at San Diego State University is committed to producing graduates who are not only prepared for their professional ambitions but who are also able to become leaders and advocates for the arts in society.
We proudly serve as a dedicated resource for excellence in performance, choreography, teaching, research, and creative activity.
Kevin Delgado, Ph.D. Director, Associate Professor of Music School of Music and Dance
Changing Lives through Program Support
Winona Richards and Floyd Grant Music Educator Endowed Scholarship
The School of Music and Dance received a philanthropic gift from Naomi Grant to honor her parents who were devoted music enthusiasts.
The scholarship supports students who are training to become music educators. SDSU is proud of its reputation as the leading trainer of music educators in southern California.
Winona Richards Grant
Living the Aztec Experience
Michael Edison Macanlalay Cartas, Class of 2024
Class Level: Undergraduate Student
College: School of Music and Dance
Major: Music
My goal is to share my passion for music with others. I want to become a secondary music educator and engage students through rehearsing, performing, and building community.
My academic journey at SDSU has advanced my aspirations by providing me with such a comprehensive experience. The music education program at SDSU is unique compared to other schools as the degree prepares educators to teach in all music settings. Alumni of SDSU’s program have gone on to teach in various settings that involve mariachi and electronic music.
As someone who wishes to teach in the diverse community of San Diego, I feel that SDSU’s program has equipped me with the resources and skills I need to be successful in whatever classroom I have in the future.
The music education program at SDSU is unique compared to other schools as the degree prepares educators to teach in all music settings.
Alyssa Moreno, Class of 2024
Class Level: Undergraduate Student College: School of Music and Dance Major: Dance
As a Mexican American artist, I want to create a safe space within and with dance for everyone, especially those who experience life as I do, between cultures, languages, and identities.
I aspire to become a dance teacher/professor at a collegiate level, serving my community and inspiring those who get to learn from me while growing and learning together.
I believe my experience in my major prepared me to be able to see the big picture but also the details in everything, not just dance. Open-mindedness and all-embracing commitment to what you are doing are vital to growth and development, and this has been present with me throughout my time at the SDSU Dance Program.
I have grown to see dance as so much more than movement, it is a research method, it is creativity at play, art, therapy, a safe place and space. It is because of my experience in the dance major that my aspiration to become an educator grew stronger. The care, commitment, and knowledge my professors shared with me in every class and conversation set an example of what I want to become.
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It is because of
my experience in the dance major that my aspiration to become an educator grew stronger.
Celebrating Shared Success
Statistics of Interest
70 dance undergraduate students
265 music undergraduate students
30 music graduate students
Dance faculty performed or had their works performed in Poland, Sweden, Mexico, and New York. Music faculty performed in Greece, Germany, England, and in numerous American cities.
Faculty composers had their works performed in South Korea, England, Canada, Mexico, and in cities and universities throughout the United States.
Faculty dancers, musicologists, music theorists, and music educators presented scholarly works at numerous national and international conferences.
Recent Highlights
Wildly popular K-Pop Dance Symposium and showcase created and hosted by faculty member Dr. Chuyun Oh
Collaboration between SDSU Choirs, Orchestra, and the School of Theatre, Television and Film’s Musical Theatre Program for a production of Children of Eden
State tour by SDSU Wind Symphony and SDSU Orchestra featuring a world-premiere commissioned composition for Wind Symphony
New leadership of the SDSU Opera by faculty member Travis Sherwood and the opera’s production of Hansel and Gretel in the Main Stage Theatre
Hosted ffteen master classes taught by nationally and internationally renowned expert artists for our students and the general public
In fall 2024, we will debut a dance education degree specialization and also relaunch a Mariachi Ensemble at SDSU for the frst time in over a decade, led by respected mariachi educator Dr. Jef Nevin
Fall 2024 debut of the dance education degree specialization
Helping to Build a Brighter Future
Jess Humphrey, MFA, CLMA, RSMT
Title: Associate Professor of Dance
College: School of Music and Dance
Achievement: Her movement research began in childhood with competitive gymnastics and continues today with dancemaking from various, shifting perspectives and states of body~mind.
An intensive study with Deborah Hay in 2009 changed her life and continues to inspire her every move. Her collaboration with Eric Geiger (UCSD) and Leslie Seiters (SDSU) spans a decade and multiple contexts, including Pause, a trio by Deborah Hay.
She has shared in the creation of several evening-length dances as director, collaborator, and/or performer over the past eighteen years with other artists, including Gabor Tompa, Sara Shelton Mann, Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s La Pocha Nostra, Nugent Dance in Los Angeles, and Core Dance Theatre in Idaho, and LIVE. Over a decade of practicing and performing spontaneous dancemaking with LIVE (Kris Apple, Emily Aust, Liam Clancy, Anya Cloud, Viktor De La Fuente, Ron Estes, Chloë Freeman, Eric Geiger, Zack King, Verónica Santiago Moniello, Justin Morrison, Blair Robert Nelson, Krista Kaye Nelson, Nhu Nguyen, Mary Peterson [previously Mary Reich], Karen Schafman, Leslie Seiters, Yolande Snaith, and Aubrhe Yruretagoyena) continues to shape her work, and she remains engaged in that weekly practice in ways that are still very much aLIVE.
She is a certifed Integral Facilitator through Ten Directions with primary teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton. Jess continues to learn by teaching in the Dance Program at San Diego State University, was co-facilitator and teacher at Practice, a dancing intensive in San Diego for two summers, and taught at the Winter Intensive for ADF.
She has also enjoyed teaching and directing work with students at the University of California, San Diego, California State University, San Marcos, and MiraCosta College and cofacilitating the weekly Contact jam in San Diego at Stage 7 School of Dance with other members of the local Contact community.
Faculty Achievements
Karen Koner, Ph.D.
Title: Associate Professor, Music Education College: School of Music and Dance Achievement: Dr. Koner’s research interests encompass topics related to music teacher education, with a specifc lens of examining the current needs of pre-service music educators in her home state of California, as well as mental health, stress management, and mindfulness techniques of music educators and students.
She has presented her research and work internationally and nationally through music education professional conferences in Glasgow, Scotland, Tel Aviv, and throughout the United States. Dr. Koner’s research can be found in journals such as The Update: Applications of Research in Music Education and the International Journal of Music Education.
Additionally, Dr. Koner can be found in her spare time instructing yoga, with a specialty in Restorative, Yin, & Chair Yoga practices. She enjoys combining her love of yoga and music teacher training by working with musicians and educators on techniques to increase health awareness in the music classroom.
Dr. Karen Koner serves as associate professor and coordinator of music education at San Diego State University. As a specialist in instrumental music education, she teaches undergraduate courses focusing on K-12 teaching strategies, rehearsal techniques, lesson planning, and curriculum.
Dr. Koner holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction in Music Education from the University of Maryland and an additional degree from the University of Arizona.
