The Beth and Kelly Show Episode Eight: Blake Saunders & Jared Sessink

The Beth and Kelly Show had an awesome conversation with Bethany Robinson, Director of Jazz Activities at Purdue University! Bethany is a deeply wise music educator and professional musician who builds a humongous community of jazz lovers and players everywhere she goes. Listen in to find out why and how.

We had the BEST chat with orchestra educator Jonathan Glawe and members of the Pioneer High School Symphonic Strings Orchestra from Ann Arbor, Michigan (Eli Braunschneider --12th Grade, Soledad beck --10th Grade, Hyunsung Woo --11th Grade, and Luke Hayden --12th Grade). They are "on tour" and just had an amazing, ground-breaking performance at the National Orchestra Festival in Atlanta as a part of the ASTA Conference. This deeply inspiring and deeply honest conversation should be required listening for all secondary music educators as we continue our journey through "festival season." These students have real thoughts and ideas for helping ensure lifelong musicianship and artistic expression and opportunities for everyone are the REAL goals of "festivals" and music ed in general. I'm telling you --you NEED TO LISTEN TO THIS!

We had the BEST convo with Dr. Julie Yu, Director of Choral Activities at Oklahoma City University and Conductor of the Oklahoma City Canterbury Voices Chorale. We go deep into how it feels as women in music education and leadership in this moment in time and the tiny slivers of hope — of light shining through the barriers. There is cause to be worried, yes, but also cause for hope and optimism.

This show with Ramon Rivera is a MUST LISTEN!! Right now is the time to build a safe, LOVING, welcoming place for our students and Ramon shares how to START. Tune in!

If you’re a music educator, we know it’s tough right now and there are SO many questions. Please listen to this episode withJazzmone Sutton, the Senior Manager for State Advocacy and Equity at NAfME. We know that things are coming and we’re going to need to act. We can’t do it alone. We must collectively collaborate in heavy duty advocacy and help each other out. Listen to Jazzmone’s ideas on how we can START and CONTINUE!

We had a SUPER IMPORTANT conversation with Dr. Sean Powell about his SUPER IMPORTANT book The Ideology of Competition in School Music. Have you ever, as a music educator who was involved in some type of competition with your students, felt a sinking feeling of “something just ain’t right about this….” ? If this is you, listen to this episode. Read the book!

Awesome conversation with Seattle music ed maven Deb Schaaf! We worked with Deb for years in Seattle Public Schools and together we played a big role in shaping the district’s cutting edge “Cornerstone Assessment” that centers student-directed learning, collaboration, and creativity. The through-line of our discussion: LIFE-LONG MUSIC MAKING!!

Excellent and eclectic conversation with multi-genre musician/ creator (and former Seattleite/ Rooseveltian) Brittany Anjou! Brittany has been spreading her genius around NYC for almost 20 years now, has been conducting some cutting edge research, and contributes wisdom to young scholars as a prof at The New School. This conversation is a good one to listen to if you are an artist or educator of future artists who realize that “the culture of struggle” in all of its forms as a “way of being” with in the professional musician community is a speed bump and you want to find data to back it up and ways to mitigate the toxicity. Oh! And stick around until the end for a sweet acapella performance!

In this episode, we celebrate 5 years of this podcast — a true labor of love; AND we talk at length about a mentor of ours — a consummate music educator who was the very essence of cool — the late Robert E Knatt.

In this epic conversation with Molly Redfield, we talk about Molly’s musical upbringing, and the challenges encountered as a woman pro performer and music educator. What became evident is that words matter — even offhanded comments from an adjudicator at a middle school jazz band festival. Words (even seemingly simple ones) can affect the trajectory of one’s beliefs about themselves and one’s very future. We need to be conscious of our words, and the words of those we have speak to our students. After this conversation, what we can tell you is that we are SO GLAD Molly is out there in the music ed realm — Molly — keep doing your super power — building warm welcoming communities for music participants and learners!