The Longs Peak Chorus in 2022 made connections with the Erie High School Choral program and offered a full scholarship to choir director Thalia Burd to attend the Barbershop Harmony Society's Harmony University in August of 2022. Here are her comments and a photograph of one of her classes;
Harmony University was one of the most meaningful and memorable professional development experiences I have had in my 14 year career as a music educator. While I am very active in the Colorado MEA and ACDA communities, I have never done a professional development program for music out of state and was eager to learn new teaching strategies from musicians all over the world. I went into the conference with very little knowledge of Barbershop Harmony as an artform and no idea how to incorporate it into my teaching but with the goal to learn about all of that to enrich my students’ experiences in choir. Not only were my conference goals met, they were exceeded! Each course was immediately relevant and meaningful to my classroom and pedagogy as a vocal music educator, and I loved getting to sing with the SSAA chorus under the direction of Glenda Lloyd. Barbershop is the perfect medium to enable lifelong singers, and that is my ultimate goal for not only myself but also my students. I would recommend this program to all of my colleagues, and I cannot wait to implement my new ideas into the classroom this year!
|
