Sigma Alpha Iota

46 Fall 2021 • sai-national.org Music Education featured yet in a suggestion list given by students. Go to the "Contribute A Lesson" tab to find the template. is part is very important: be sure to make a copy of the template and don't just start filling it out! I suggest that once you've made your copy, immediately rename it to the person/group you are working on so that you don't accidentally start adding information to the wrong document. Begin your work! e beautiful thing with this template is that the directions are spelled out very clearly and are concise. ere is no guessing work involved. As you're working through each lesson, remember that you've given your fast facts on your musician/group at the beginning. erefore, be sure to focus your lessons on the music and musical activities rather than a straight up history lesson. I highly recommend going back to Laura William's Winter 2021 PAN PIPES article ("Resiliency in the Face of Distance Learning") about using Chrome Music Lab — this (free) resource can easily be integrated into lessons (I personally used it on my lesson for William Grant Still). A note about Copyright: there is a section for citations. You should also use photos and other materials that are public domain. A section for citations is included in the template. Once finished, send your final product to Adam at: musicianofthemonthproject@gmail.com Adam will then look it over and check to be sure that it is concise and copyright has been followed. If follow up is needed, he will contact you. I will add here that for budding teachers at the collegiate level, this could be a great way to start practicing creating clear and concise lesson plans. SAI chapters at all levels — this could be the service project you've been looking for. Impact Impact In speaking with Adam about the impact this project has had on musicians and music educators, this is what he had to say: "I've actually been really astonished by how strongly MOTM has caught on with other music educators. I started presenting about this model at various conferences in 2017, and I published some articles in some journals around that time, too. I kept hearing stories from music teachers in the years that followed about how they had successfully implemented the curriculum in their own programs. Many of those teachers engaged the featured musicians themselves and held live or virtual events with their students and those musicians, including Rhiannon Giddens, Yo-Yo Ma, e Wailin' Jennys, alumni of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and others. I have also heard that students and their families have bonded over listening to the musicians, and many students have chosen to pursue further musical study because a certain featured musician inspired them. I would love to publish 100+ featured musician units on the website and to engage many more music educators of all backgrounds in writing and using these lessons!" About Adam McLean About Adam McLean Adam McLean has 13 years of experience teaching K-8 music in urban schools. Adam holds degrees from e Boston Conservatory and Skidmore College, and he earned a Kodály Music Teaching Certificate (Level III) from the Kodály Music Institute of Anna Maria College. Adam has taught general music in the Boston Public Schools, the Troy (NY) City Schools, the Cambridge (MA) Public Schools, and the Somerville (MA) Public Schools. He presents regularly at local, state, and national music education symposia and has been published in several print and online journals. Adam is the immediate Past President of Boston Area Kodály Educators and is one of the team leaders for the Musician of the Month Project. Adam is also a professional percussionist, a composer, and the proud father of two children (ages 11 and 7). To learn more about the NNOC or to contribute to the project, visit: https://musicianofthemonthproject.com/ dddddere's so much more that I can share with you about my friend—about her affilia- tions with the American Federation of Musi- cians, the International Conference of Sympho- ny and Opera Musicians, the Alliance France, about her experiences as Choirmaster at St. Michael's and All Angels Episcopal Church, her lab tech work at Christ Hospital, about the nu- merous hours she spent training and showing her beloved dogs, Jost, Josqui and Loki. Now, at age 98, she has been honored by the University of Cincinnati with the Outstanding Alumni Award and has the distinction of being the first recipient of the Dean's Medal presented by Dr. Stanley Romanstein, Dean of the College-Conservatory of Music. is award, which honors a graduate or former student whose outstanding leadership, professional ac- complishments, and dedication to their chosen field, was presented as part of CCM'S Virtual Graduation Convocation Ceremony on April 28, 2020. Since she was not able to attend the award ceremony virtually, I had the honor of accepting the award on her behalf. In my comments, I said "No doubt, she is a true pioneer, having paved the way for generations of women brass players. She was an amazing performer, a brilliant pedagogue, and someone who was profoundly passionate about promoting the highest level of music-making. She is an extraordinary lady!" rough it all my friend has remained humble. When informed that she was to receive the first ever CCM Dean's Medal, she wrote "Never could I have dreamed of such an honor for my work. I simply thought that I was just doing my job." Betty now resides in a senior living facility in a remote village in Provence. Although her vision and hearing have declined precipitously in the last couple of years, her mind has remained quite sharp. She's always ea- ger to hear news about Cincinnati, the CSO and CCM, and relishes receiving cards and letters from friends, former students and fellow musicians. Even though she's someone with rather sophisticated tastes in food and wine, she recently admitted to me that she would give anything for a Big Mac and fries. I was thrilled to hear that her sense of humor is still intact. It is so hard to put into words the significance of a sixty year friendship with a person as enormously impressive as my friend. How fortunate I am to have been in her orbit for so many years. Betty Glover: the performer, the educator, the conductor, the trailblazer, the consummate professional! — Submitted by Marie Speziale CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 10 Fall 2021 • sai-national.org By Stephanie M. Riley Contributions and Project Conception by Adam McLean As a music educator, I'm constantly searching for lessons and content that celebrate diversity and are socially conscious. Enter the Musician of the Month Project. In a nutshell, the Musician of the Month Project (MOTM) currently provides educators with 40 lessons at all grade levels which feature musicians from around the world. ey focus on providing lessons on musicians of varying color, gender, religious affiliation, and sexual orientation. It should be immediately noted that while the lessons created are for the music classroom, I'm confident they can be adapted for any classroom. Background Background is project was begun in 2011 by Adam McLean. When creating the project, Adam started with the goal "to inspire students to be life-long, active music-makers." When speaking with Adam more, he emphasized that "the featured musicians act as musical role models for students of all cultural, ethnic, and gender identities." Adam had started this in the form of posting bulletin boards of a Musician of the Month display for his K-8 classes in his first years of teaching. is was a way that he could "focus the listening examples." Eventually the program turned into a department-wide endeavor when department head Rick Saunders "started collaborating on featured musicians every month, representing a diversity of styles. When a student noticed that women weren't oen featured in listening examples, that got me thinking about other kinds of diversity we needed to bring to the curriculum, so that all students could see themselves in the music classroom." Lesson Format Lesson Format e lesson format is very simple and easy to use and follow. When you look at the website, for each artist you browse you will find pictures, links to videos, fast facts, and ideas for varying grade levels: K-2, 3-5, and 6-12. Each level has three objectives: "Student Will Be Able To…" and detailed instructions on how to implement each objective. In addition to these units having the perfect price tag (free!), you can use as little or as much as you would like, and you can always extend from various grade levels to fit your own. Remember, just because something is labeled as one thing, it doesn't mean you can't adapt for the grades or population you are serving. One suggestion that has been made by various teachers who have used this project in their classrooms is to send home a link to a program such as Spotify that has the playlist of the music and musicians you are featuring in your classroom. As musicians ourselves, we all know how powerful this can be for families. How the project has grown How the project has grown Over time, "the materials and templates have become more standardized over the years, in order to make the creation and the implementation of the units more efficient and effective. We were also fortunate to receive an Education grant from the Boston University Consortium in 2019. is allowed us to revise our materials with guidance from BU Music Education professor Tawnya Smith, and it also provided the funding to set up the website. Since launching the website in February 2020 with 8 sample listening units, we now have 40 high- quality featured musician units available online." How to become involved How to become involved Getting involved in creating content for the project is very easy. Find the artist you would like to focus your lesson on. You can view the complete list of artists who have units on the page and you can see the list of artists that haven't been Musician of the Month Project SAI Honorary Members Marian Anderson and Gloria SAI Honorary Members Marian Anderson and Gloria Estefan and Member Laureate Jessye Norman are Estefan and Member Laureate Jessye Norman are featured musicians in the project. featured musicians in the project. Music Education CONTINUED ON PAGE 46 sai-national.org • Fall 2021 7 I first met my friend in 1960, my freshman year at the College-Con- servatory of Music in Cincinnati (CCM). For the first time in my young life, I was fortunate enough to have an accomplished woman brass player as a teacher and mentor. Trust me, there were precious few back in those days, over a half century ago. at teacher, that mentor, that remarkable friend is Betty Glover...a legend in the brass world! Betty's journey in the brass sphere began in Hudson, IL, when as a fih grader she began playing trumpet in the elementary school band, but not for long. She discovered early on that she was much better suited for the baritone horn, the instrument on which she won many prizes while in high school. In fact, the famous cornet soloist, Herman Bellstedt, wrote a solo for her — Betty Lee — published by yet another famous cornet solo- ist, Frank Simon. Betty later turned her attention to playing the tenor trombone before entering the Conservatory of Music. It was there that she began her life- long affiliation with Sigma Alpha Iota, and was one of the founding mem- bers of the Cincinnati Alumnae Chapter. Upon graduation in 1944, she won the principal trombone position with the Kansas City Philharmonic, making her one of the first woman trombonists in a symphony orchestra. e year 1952 brought yet another milestone in my friend's career when she became the bass trombonist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO), eventually adding the euphonium to her list of instru- ments. To date, she is the first and only woman to ever hold that position in a major orchestra in our country. Her tenure with the CSO spanned nearly thirty-three years, where she performed under the batons of great conductors such as Max Rudolf, Josef Krips, George Szell, Robert Shaw, Eric Leinsdorf and so many others. Her return to Cincinnati also brought with it an invitation to join the faculty at the Conservatory of Music, which later merged with its rival, the College of Music, and eventually became part of the University of Cincinnati (CCM). Over the course of forty years, she taught the low brass instruments, brass methods courses, and launched one of the first brass orchestral repertoire classes in a major music school. Nonetheless, Betty's greatest passion was conducting the CCM Brass Choir. For twenty-three years, she provided the most accomplished brass students the opportunity to perform programs that were innovative, eclec- tic, and exceedingly challenging. It is safe to say that over the past couple of generations, the brass sections of symphony orchestras and US military bands have been the beneficiaries of players who received their ensemble training under her baton. In 1993, shortly aer retiring from CCM and before moving to Provence in Southern France, there came yet another first in the form of the Pioneer Award presented by the International Women's Brass Confer- ence (IWBC). is award was given in recognition of her leadership in breaking barriers and stereo-types in the world of brass performers. A real trailblazer for women in music! A Tribute to SAI Betty Glover Music Notes xxxx xxx xxxx xx xxxx xxx xxxx xx CONTINUED ON PAGE 46 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

• Cover