Music Education
Here you’ll find all of my music-education-related projects, from conducting to workshops and presentations.
Mount Royal Youth Wind Ensemble
The Mount Royal Youth Wind Ensemble debuted in the fall of 2019, with me as its director. The ensemble plays easy to intermediate level concert band pieces in weekly rehearsals and 2-3 yearly concerts. The goal of the ensemble is for the young musicians to develop both their individual playing and their ensemble skills in a fun and engaging environment, as well as broaden their musical skill sets by introducing concepts of theory, history and ear training into the rehearsal setting.
Maintenance Mondays!
Maintenance Mondays is a presentation I have created from my term paper for Advanced Wind Techniques at McGill. The talk is designed for young music teachers to become familiar with the benefits of simple instrument maintenance and preventative care, give tips on performing easy or emergency repairs, and introduce a method to incorporate these into their class time and foster good habits in their students.
Selwyn House School
Selwyn House School starts its band program in grade 6 with four instruments: clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and trombone. Throughout the year, the band period is divided so that each instrument meets with their specialist for half the period. There, they learn the basics of how to produce a sound, play a scale, read music and play as a group, so that they can put on a concert by the end of the year. I had the immense privilege of working with the trombonists at the start of the year, and with the brass in general by the end of the year. Week by week, each student has progressed far beyond the first note they ever played into true budding musicians.
Symphonic Band Club
The McGill Symphonic Band Club unites musicians from many different faculties which would otherwise not have the opportunity to perform in an ensemble. It is also a terrific opportunity for young music educators like myself to develop rehearsal and conducting skills in a fun and challenging environment. The band is still rehearsing, albeit online, by sight reading and performing along to recordings over Zoom.