Orchestra Column sean Williams Orchestra Chair

Please join us at this year’s OMEA conference! As always, this is a wonderful opportunity to meet and visit with your colleagues, hear some outstanding performing ensembles, and perhaps pick up an idea or two to enhance your teaching.

Featured clinicians in the orchestra world this year include the following:

Ian Edlund, longtime teacher and owner of String Instrument Specialists in Olympia, Washington, presents three sessions on the nuts and bolts of teaching, covering diverse topics, such as training bass players, developing fundamental playing techniques, and improving intonation. Ian’s sessions are always informative and entertaining, so please join us!

Richard Meyer, noted composer and educator, and this year’s All-State Middle School Honor Orchestra conductor, speaks about developing lesson plans for comprehensive musicianship. Comprehensive musicianship is the idea that students should know more about music than simply how to play their instruments. I attended one of Richard’s sessions at the ASTA Conference last year, and it was outstanding! You won’t want to miss this one.

Donald Schleicher, chair of the Orchestra Division at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and this year’s All-State High School Honor Orchestra conductor, will speak on Sunday morning. You will certainly want to hear what this fine conductor has to say!

Finally, we are pleased to host a panel discussion among several of Oregon’s most highly regarded high school orchestra teachers. We will field questions from the audience. This is an excellent opportunity to pick the brains of the best and the brightest in our field.

Add to all of this the performances of the Middle School and High School Honor Orchestra on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, respectively, and it’s sure to be a conference to remember.

It is an exciting time to be an orchestra teacher in Oregon! I hope that you all will join me at this year’s conference.