The CMEA Bay Section Winter Conference was a magnificent event this year! From the engaging workshops, to the wine and cheese Friday evening social hour, and ending with the beautiful concerts our Honor ensembles produced - it was captivating! I was proud of my two middle school students who sang in the Honor Choir this year. They were had an amazing time singing with other bay area students and learning a great deal from this year’s guest conductor, Sharon Vela.

Our general music workshops began on Friday with Linda Covington’s Orff workshop “Movement to Music.” The clinic taught us wonderful folk dances then showed us how these dances can be played on an Orff ensemble of instruments – taking our students from moving to the music to reading the music (literacy) and performing the tunes on instruments. It was fascinating.

Our next clinician, Harini Krishnan Vikas, is a well-known South Indian Classical Music (Carnatic Music) vocalist brought us on a journey of understanding how western music theory compares and relates to South Indian (Carnatic) music theory. One of our CMEA members said to me after the clinic, “I’ve always wanted to understand the Indian music system! Harini made clear connections between our western scales and the Ragas that it makes so much more sense to me!” Harini’s workshop was so enriching that she has already been contacted by several CMEA members to present workshops to their school district and children!
We ended Friday with a wonderful workshop from Diane Lister, the Pacific Region Music and Art Curriculum Specialist with Pearson, who demonstrated innovating resources from Silver Burdett Making Music. Diane focused on strategies that make listening an active and engaging teaching episode!

On Saturday, we started with Dr. Rochelle Mann from Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. She was brought to us by the Silver Burdett Making Music Publishing Company. Dr. Mann had us all dancing and playing games right from the start. She taught us lessons to help us meet the music National Standards, including singing and music literacy.

We ended the General Music clinics with Elizabeth Balzano, MA, MT-BC, who was flown out from New York City by Brandissimo! Inc. Elizabeth is an innovative music therapy that uses music to teach and support behavior in students that are on the autism spectrum. She was written many songs, which help all children learn. Her clinic walked us through a typical music therapy session and was full of strategies that we as music educators and use in our classroom to support our exceptional learners. To learn more about her program go to http://www.spectrumconnection.org. I highly recommend this program to families who have children on the spectrum.

I am excited to announce that Linda Covington was named our CMEA Bay Section General Music Teacher of the Year! Linda Covington received her Bachelor of Music Degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, and her Master of Arts Music Education from California State University East Bay. In addition to teaching general classroom music and performing arts at the elementary level for over 20 years, Mrs. Covington has been a private voice teacher, and soloist with various local musical theatre and opera companies. Her first and greatest passion is sharing the love of performing arts with children. Mrs. Covington has been trained in both the Kodaly and Orff approaches and believes in using all the tools and training available to open the hearts and minds of young people through music. Her National Board Certification in Early and Middle Childhood Music served to ignite new ideas for engaging students, and fine-tune her teaching strategies.

As we all prepare for our spring festivals and concerts, I wish you all an exciting, educational end of the year. It has been my pleasure being your Bay Section General Music Representative these past two years.