Kent State University Fall Update

Butch Marshall taught an early childhood course for participants in Seoul, Korea. This is his third ‘trip’ working with music educators and teacher educators in S. Korea. Dr. Marshall’s summer concluded with a visit to Ph.D. student Bill Klein’s choral students at Austintown-Fitch as they prepared for their academic-musical year. Dr. Marshall shared a traditional choral piece from South Africa and discussed the unique opportunity for musical travel–being a music and culture ambassador wherever you wander because of your ability to engage in and share music.

Craig Resta attended and presented at the International Society for Music Education in Montréal, Canada in July. One session focused on his sabbatical tour last year (Travel as Growth in Music Education: 10+ Countries, 100+ Days, 1000+ Experiences), and the other a collaborative discussion comparing international master's degrees (Building Bridges for International Understanding: Comparative Perspectives on MUED Master’s Degrees in Spain, Germany, and United States). Dr. Resta presently serves as chair of the ISME History Standing Committee, and organized four gatherings, centered on international historical matters related to the society. These include a doctoral student mentoring session with early career and established scholars, academic meetings, presiding for multiple sessions, and supporting a panel on indigenous musicians and musical experiences throughout Canada. Countries and colleagues represented were Iceland, Austria, Spain, Hungary, Brazil, Germany, Canada, Poland, United States, Norway, Uganda, South Africa, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Australia, Ireland, and many others. ISME represents some 90+ countries around the world in music teaching and learning endeavors, celebrating 75 years in 2028 since its founding in Brussels in 1953.

Jay Dorfman attended and presented at the MusicWill Modern Band Summit in Fort Collins, Colorado. One session was a “deep dive” into building guitar technique, and the other focused on warm-ups that might be used or adapted for guitar classes. Dr. Dorfman is a higher education fellow with MusicWill. In the coming year he will partner with that organization to host a Modern Band 101 training at Kent State (on November 21st), and to bring Ohio its first JamFest event.

Music Education at Kent State has grown enormously, almost doubling its undergraduate student population in the last four years. We are refining our new teacher preparation curriculum which launched last fall and has been very successful. The KSU Honor Choir Festival will be held on October 17th and the Honor Orchestra on November 1st. Please check www.kent.edu/music/events for a full listing of concerts, honor festivals, and other School of Music events. We look forward to welcoming you to campus!