Index

Greetings and welcome back!

When the tolling of the Denny Chimes mixes with the resonating chords from the Million Dollar Band and youthful voices of new students, it is easy to recognize the beginning of the school year is well under way in Tuscaloosa. If you are like me, the summer break has faded into a distant yet pleasant memory, and you are now immersed in setting goals, planning lessons, teaching students, and preparing for an exciting new year of music-making and learning.

AMEA. Members of the Governing Board worked for months planning an excellent year of professional growth and learning for you and your students, and I can’t wait to share some of it with you.

In June, the Governing Board met and welcomed our incoming board members and together we renewed our commitment to many of the initiatives we started in 2014. This year, we will attempt to complete the second phase of our strategic plan and ensure we pass as many milestones as possible. In essence, we will continue to connect with nationally recognized leaders, emphasize professional outreach, increase industry connections, fund special clinicians, and build our capacity for state-level advocacy by rebranding our organization and growing membership.

possible and needed to provide meaningful professional development for educators tasked with teaching music in the second decade of the 21st century. We are reaching out to the professional music community in a way that we’ve never attempted before by having the renowned professional brass quintet, The Boston Brass, headline our inservice conference. And we will try a few other experiments to inject more “professional” into the professional development we offer. As my colleague Skip Snead likes to say when good news is just around the corner, “stay tuned!

I am always amazed at how uplifting summertime can be. It truly reinvigorates my passion for teaching. For those of you who know me well, come mid-August, I begin to look forward to the first day of classes and overtly express the same excitement I felt when I was a schoolboy. However, this time, as I take stock of the summer and last year, I am feeling excited about what the future will bring and simultaneously, very proud about our past. I am amazed to count how much we accomplished as an Association, especially in just the last couple of months. This summer was extremely productive for the

To achieve a substantial increase in membership, we pledged to seek out those music teachers who left the AMEA, restore their faith in our association, and encourage their return. As an example of our commitment to this goal, the AMEA will implement a concerted membership drive from now through January, which will be led by former AMEA President (2008-2010) and current Treasurer/Registrar, Pat Stegall. He will have the help of Peter Daugherty from the NAfME office and assistance from volunteers throughout the state. We encourage you to take a moment and reach out to colleagues and let them know, the AMEA and NAfME are focused on meeting the needs of Alabama music teachers and their students. At the same time, we will seek out new teachers, whether new to the profession or new to our great state, and encourage them to join not just for the resources we can provide, but for the camaraderie and support. We need to stand together for music education in our schools and communicate a consistent message about the importance of music in the lives of our students. The old adage popularized by Helen Keller, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” certainly rings true when it comes to advocating for music. So, we will continue to work at recruiting new members, retaining current members, and inviting former members to take a second look at our organization.

We will also continue to tinker with our inservice conference, so we learn what is

At the end of June, four members of our Governing Board and three of our Collegiates traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in NAfME's National Leadership Assembly, Collegiate Advocacy Summit, and Hill Day 2015 activities. Some of the many highlights from the trip include visiting the offices of both of our US Senators and four State Representatives on Capitol Hill. We shared a simple, yet profound message of advocacy for music education and discussed the importance of maintaining music and the arts as core academic subjects in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2015. By all accounts, our message was well received.

Also, in June, we learned that five Alabama students were selected for the All-National Honor Ensembles to perform at the NAfME National Conference (October 2528) in the Grand Ole Opry Housein Nashville, Tennessee! These outstanding students were nominated by their directors and will join other fine musicians from across the US to form the All-National Concert Band and Mixed Choir. Selected students include Carrie Ciecierski (Dothan High School, Steve McLendon, director), Liam Remley (Shades Valley High School, David Allinder, director), Hannah Love (Saraland High School, Christine Breland, director) and Ben Cooper and Devan Payne (Austin High School, John Cooper, director). I hope you will join me in congratulating these students and their directors.

Finally, here is a glimpse of some of the plans we are working on for 2015-2016 and goals we surpassed this summer.

President-elect, Susan Smith, is working on hosting our state’s first Alabama Music Education Advocacy Day in 2016.

The Ala Breve will continue to invite music educators from across the US to write original articles for our journal. To date, we have published 23 original articles in our journal since beginning the initiative.

Garry Taylor has helped increase Industry Membership in the AMEA to 22 members which is a 57% increase over figures from a year ago.

The FJH Music Company Inc. will sponsor the AMEA Reading Band and support a top-notch clinician, Brian Balmages, to direct the group at our state conference in January 2016.

The Governing Board passed a budget to extend the special clinician fund for the AVA, ABA, AOA, and Elementary/ General Music Division. Each group now has the opportunity to invite nationally recognized speakers to present at the 2016 In-Service Conference.

The Governing Board secured support from Jupiter Band Instruments to help bring the Boston Brass to headline the 2016 In-Service Conference.

Dr. Diane Orlofsky from Troy State University was appointed to serve as the 2015-2016 choral music reviewer for the Ala Breve.

Mr. David Raney of Sparkman High School was appointed to serve as the Alabama TI:ME Representative. The Technology Institute for Music Education, also known as TI:ME, has expressed an interest in partnering with the AMEA.

The AMEA website will be restructured, modernized, and rebuilt.

The Outstanding Young Music Teacher Award was officially renamed the Edward H. Cleino Outstanding Young Music Teacher Award in honor of Ed‘s numerous contributions to the AMEA.

This is only a snapshot of the excellent work your AMEA Officers and Governing Board members have been doing this summer and I am certain their columns will highlight the leadership they bring to Alabama. As you can tell, planning and preparations for the new year are well under way. As your President, I am looking forward to partnering with you to provide the best music education possible to students throughout Alabama. We are here to support you and I welcome your thoughts, ideas, and comments. I wish for you and your students a great new year.

Carl Hancock, President

President CarlHancock UniversityofAlabama Box870366 Tuscaloosa,AL35487 (205)348-6335 chancock@bama.ua.edu

President,ABA

MichealHolmes

MountainBrookJuniorHigh School

205OverbrookRd.

Birmingham,AL35213

(205)871-3516x8525 thetubaman@charter.net

PastPresident SaraWomack Greystone ElementarySchool 300VillageStreet Birmingham,AL5242 (205)439-3200 saratwomack@gmail.com

President-Elect

SusanSmith

SaintJamesSchool

6010VaughnRoad Montgomery,AL36116 ssmith@stjweb.org

ExecutiveDirector Editor, AlaBreve

GarryTaylor

1600ManorDr.NE

Cullman,AL35055

(256)636-2754 amea@bellsouth.net

RecordingSecretary

CarlaGallahan

President,AVA

CarlDavis

DecaturHighSchool

1011ProspectDrive

Decatur,AL35601

President,AOA SarahSchrader P.O.Box2221 Foley,AL36536 (334)728-2855 burkart_sarah@yahoo.com

Treasurer/Registrar PatStegall

AMEARegistration POBox3385

MuscleShoals,AL35661 pstegall@mscs.k12.al.us

212SmithHall

TroyUniversity

Troy,AL36082

(334)670-3502 cgallahan@troy.edu

President,AMEACollegiate

ThadWalker

UniversityofMontevallo

(205)636-0756 jwalker14@forum.montevallo.edu

(256)559-0407 carlbethemeryellen@gmail.com

IndustryRepresentative

BeckyLightfoot

ArtsMusicShop

3030EastBlvd.

Montgomery,AL36116

334/271-2787 beckyl@artsmusicshop.com

AMEACollegiateAdvisor

TedHoffman

UnivesityofMontevallo

Station6670

DavisMusicBuilding308

Montevallo,AL35115

(205)665-6668 ehoffman@montevallo.edu

GarryTaylor,Editor&AdvertisingManager 1600ManorDr.NE Cullman,AL35055 (256)636-2754 amea@bellsouth.net

President,HigherEducation

JamesZingara

UAB231HulseyCenter

Birmingham,AL35294

(205)934-7376 jzingara@uab.edu

President,Elem/Gen

CliffHuckabee

TheMontgomeryAcademy

LowerSchoolCampus

1550PerryHillRoad

Montgomery,AL36109 334-462-3790 cliffhuckabee@gmail.com

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Hello Collegiate Members,

Thad Walker - President, AMEA Collegiate Division

I hope that you have been enjoying your summer and now find that you are well rested. While taking this relaxing break from school, I hope that you have all found ways in which you have bettered yourself as a future music educator. The Collegiate Board has been preparing for next school year’s two fantastic events that I really hope to see each and every one of you attend.

The AMEA Conference is one of NAfME’s greatest events each year and this year is no exception! The board has selected a wide variety of sessions that will contain extremely valuable information that will help us all in our future careers. Please make plans to attend one of the greatest opportunities to learn valuable information - specifically for college students - as well as meet some very fantastic educators. Keep your eyes and ears out for our pre-registration date. I also encourage you to seek out funding from your schools. This is something that they will love to help you with.

An event that will be coming up before AMEA Conference is the Collegiate Fall

Summit. This event is a one-day FREE event specifically for college students. Although smaller than AMEA,this event brings you closer to other students outside of your school that share the same passion that you do. There will be several sessions that we are excited to be a part of and hope that this will further your knowledge. We also hope that these sessions will take away some of the apprehensions that we as future educators may have.

The collegiate board and I cannot wait for this exciting year to start. If you have not joined the Facebook – Alabama NAfME Collegiate page, please do so. This page has all sorts of interesting information. Please feel free to contact me with your questions or concerns.

Thank you and I look forward to working with you this year!

Thad Walker President- Collegiate Division University of Montevallo

jwalke14@forum.montevallo.edu

(256)-636-0756

James Zingara - President, Higher Education Division

reports)can be found on the AMEA website: http://www.alabamamea.org/higher_ed/inde x.htm and will be in effect as we elect the positions of President-Elect and SecretaryTreasurer in January.

Dear HED Colleagues,

I hope that you have had a relaxing summer break and are returning to the school year with the batteries fully charged. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my HED Division colleagues Dr. Becky Halliday (PresidentElect) from the University of Montevallo and Mildred Lanier (Secretary – Treasurer) of Jefferson State Community College for their hard work and contributions over the past several months. During this time, we have selected sessions for the 2016 AMEA Conference (which will be announced in the October Ala Breve) as well as enacted a new set of HED By-Laws, which are mainly concerned with the officer election process as well as clarifying the duties of the individual offices. These by-laws (as well as our division

For the 2015 Conference, we added two new events, namely the HED Panel Discussion and the HED Student Ensemble Showcase. These events generated a lot of positive feedback and I am happy to announce that both sessions will return in 2016. This year’s panel is entitled The Breakdown Between the Higher Ed Classroom and First Year Teacher Experiences and will be concerned with the perceived “knowledge gap” between graduating student expectations and actual performance in initial positions. The idea here is to establish communication between Higher Education and fledgling music educators in the field in order to better prepare students for the challenges that they will face in their first jobs.

The HED Student Ensemble Showcase provides anexcellent opportunity for college and university chamber groups to perform at the state conference. Last year, the recital featured 60 student performers from 5 different universities who performed to over 100 people and we hope to reproduce the success of this event again in 2016. If you would like to have your group perform, please send an e-mail including your proposed program information (title, composer/arranger and movement titles) and personnel list to jzingara@uab.edu by November 1st, 2015 Although ensembles from 2015 are encouraged to apply, the emphasis of this year’s recital will be to showcase groups that are new to the event.There will be a small reception following this year’s recital for faculty and students.

During this past year, I have had many opportunities to meet and work with our HED colleagues from around the state and am looking forward to many more in this coming year. Please do not hesitate to write me if you have any questions or ideas concerning the future activities of the Higher Ed Division. In the meantime, please accept my best wishes for a rewarding and successful school year!