Band - Anthony Amitrano
Anthony received his undergraduate training in Music Education at the University of Rhode Island (2002) and received his Masters in Music Education from the Hartt School in 2008. He has studied clarinet with Jonathan Towne of URI and Dr. Richard Shillea of the Hartt School. Anthony is currently teaching beginning band (grades 5 & 6) at Bellingham Memorial Middle School in Bellingham, Massachusetts. He performs regularly with the American Band of Providence, RI and the Ocean Winds woodwind quartet, and has also performed with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Community Orchestra and Capitol Winds (Hartford, CT).
General Music - Nancy Parent
Hello, everyone! My name is Nancy Parent and I teach K-2 music in Gunnison, Colorado. Gunnison is in the western side of the Rockies in the southwest quadrant of the state. I earned my bachelors and masters degrees in music education from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. I have taught music, in one way or another, since 1981, including public (K-12), private (4-12), voice, piano and composition independently (ages 4-retiree) and Music Together (ages 0-4 with primary caregivers). I also have a performing career as an accompanist and singer. I absolutely love my job teaching K-2!
2006-2007 was my first year teaching at my current position. I incorporated literacy and numeracy in many of my classes. I successfully created and implemented two substantial thematic units for 2nd graders. The two units included the rainforest and the Underground Railroad and dovetailed with “core” classroom activities. This summer I just finished creating a nursery rhyme thematic unit for my 1st graders. Units on snow, trains, the solar system and dinosaurs are in the process of being developed.
My school, K-5, is in a huge transition. 40% of our students are below grade level in reading. Rather than accepting this fact with a shrug, our new principal who started last year, is leading us in restructuring our schedule and our teaching methodologies to increase our students’ reading levels. This may sound familiar to you! What may not sound familiar to you is that I, as a music educator, am determined to include literacy activities relevant to the “core” classroom literacy activities in all of my classes. I don’t know if I’ll achieve the 100% mark in this goal, but I’m giving it lots of effort! My goals for this year are to create and implement more thematic units and use technology more in my classroom. What are your goals? I'm interested in hearing from you.
Chorus - Carol Lewis Purcell
B.Mus. Meredith College; MME Virginia Commonwealth University
Even after 34 years in the classroom, I still get excited about singing and making music with my students. My teaching experience has included high school and middle school chorus and elementary vocal music. I grew up as an Army Brat so I had the opportunity to live in many places. My high school years were spent in Hawaii where I was lucky enough to be a student of Bill Nakahira at Leilehua High School. From him, I learned that to be a successful choral director you need to develop good musical skills, good discipline, be able to inspire your students to perform their best, and have a sense of humor. My family includes my husband, three children, and an 18 month old grand daughter who loves to sing and dance.
Orchestra - Geoff Neumann
Geoff Neuman studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he received both his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Music Education. The 2008-2009 school year marks his 11th year as the orchestra director at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nevada. The Green Valley High School Orchestra performed at The Midwest Band and the Orchestra Clinic in Chicago this past December. In April of 2006 the Green Valley High School Symphony Orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall under Neuman's direction. He has also taken his students on tours to Europe, Florida, and California to perform. In January 2008 the Green Valley HS Symphony Orchestra performed at the famous Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. Green Valley High School was named the National GRAMMY Signature School for 2000-2001. Neuman has also been the conductor of the Las Vegas Youth Symphony for the past 6 years.
Neuman is known as a versatile bassist as he plays both electric and acoustic bass in jazz, classical, rock, and other music situations. He has been a member of the Las Vegas Philharmonic string bass section since the orchestra's inception. He also performs in a jazz trio with pianist John Matteson and drummer Barry Farley. They have recently recorded their first CD titled Live at Osaka Japanese Bistro, where they have performed for the past 5 years. He has also had the opportunity to perform with various artists ranging from Joe Williams, Stefan Karlsson and Eric Marienthal to Hilary Hahn, Celine Dion, Sarah Chang, Itzhak Perlman, Andrea Bocelli, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti. He has also performed at The Village Vanguard, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center.
Mariachi - Katherine "Kitty" Lopez
Kitty Lopez, musical director of Mariachi Corazón de Phoenix and faculty associate in the Mariachi Program at Arizona State University, has performed mariachi music for over 20 years. Ms. Lopez teaches mariachi at ASU, works with students as an artist-in-residence through the Arizona Commission on the Arts with MCdP and at mariachi conferences in San Jose, California and LCIMC as a flute and violin instructor. In May 2008 Kitty and Dr Richard Haefer of ASU taught a course at the Escuela Nacional de Música (UNAM) in Mexico City on the formal integration of mariachi music in the school curriculum of the US which culminated in the premier performance by Mariachi Pumas. She currently is engaged in research on the Garibaldi Plaza mariachis and flutists who performed in historical mariachi recordings. For Kitty, mariachi is her passion!
Jazz - Alan Shapiro
Alan Shapiro is a jazz pianist and, for 21 years, a choral director and teacher of voice, musical theater, music appreciation, and music technology in the New York City public schools, currently at Edward R. Murrow High School. He has also taught at Pace University and in the Oyster Bay school district on Long Island. A graduate of Wesleyan University (B.A.) and the Manhattan School of Music (M.M.), Mr. Shapiro is a co-author of Teaching Music in the Urban Classroom, published by Rowman & Littlefield in partnership with MENC, and of the soon to be published proceedings from the Sixth Biennial National Symposium on Multicultural Music, sponsored by MENC and the University of Tennessee School of Music. He has been a clinician describing the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method at many state music conferences, including in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and was an invited speaker at the inaugural conference of the International Society for Improvised Music, sponsored by the University of Michigan. At the 2006 MENC biennial conference in Salt Lake City, Alan was a keynote speaker for a special session on urban music education. He has lectured on the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Richard Wagner and others in New York City and, on the subject of Rock and Roll, at the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association 2006 annual conference in Baltimore. In 2008, he was a guest lecturer at the University of Massachusetts (Boston) and the Manhattan School of Music. Alan Shapiro is a performer and arranger with the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company, in musical presentations given in New York City and around the country.
Guitar - Suzanne Shull
Suzanne Shull taught public school choral and general music in the Atlanta metro area for over thirty years, specializing in middle grades with experience in grades K-12 and college. A proponent of hands-on music learning, she provided her general music and choral students opportunities to explore the guitar. As a member of the MENC Guitar Education Team (formerly MENC Guitar Task Force) for over a decade she has taught guitar methods to music teachers throughout the US in summer workshops sponsored by GAMA, the NAMM Foundation and MENC. She is currently serving as National Chair of the GET and Teaching Guitar Workshops, promoting the use of guitar to explore ALL nine of the National Music Education Standards, and giving children and adults skills on the instrument that can become a friend for life.
She has presented sessions at numerous state, regional and national conferences for over two decades primarily focusing on hands-on learning and standards-based music education. She is a three-time recipient of “Teacher of the Year” and in 2000 received the “Distinguished Career” Award from the state of Georgia Music Educators.
You can find her philosophy of active music learning in the following publications:
"Exploring Music Together," General Music Today, 1987; The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Listen ! Books (1990-1992); Principals and Practices in Middle Level Education (MENC,1994); Stategies in teaching Middle School General Music, (MENC, 1997); “What are We Doing in General Music?” in Performing with Understanding, Edited by Bennett Reimer and published by MENC in 2000.