The Beth and Kelly Show: Music Teaching (and Life)

In this rare in-person opportunity, we sit down with 2024 Elizabeth Green Award recipient Jonathan Glawe, the Director of Orchestras at Ann Arbor's storied Pioneer HS. We get right to the heart of the matter on why and how Jonathan has decided to center the HUMANS that make up his program over PRESTIGE. This one will pull on your heart strings!

"Live From  ⁠American String Teachers Association⁠  Conference" featuring D'Addario's Educational Market Development Manager Lance Day! 

Fantastic conversation with bass trombone master  ⁠Jennifer Wharton⁠ ! We dig into being students, how our educators shaped us, and the process of becoming educators from many different paths. An EXCELLENT music teacher happy hour! Listen in! 

Such a great convo with  ⁠Roxy Coss⁠ , founder of the Women In Jazz Organization  ⁠http://wearewijo.org⁠  this evening! Roxy is a performer, educator, and activist — she has SO MUCH to share and SO MANY ideas about how to grow the jazz community and make it more welcoming for all. Check it out!

The OFFICIAL Episode 1, Season 4 of  ⁠The Beth and Kelly Show⁠ ! We have a seriously inspiring conversation with string educator  ⁠Jerilynn Harris⁠  about building learning environments where students are safe showing up as themselves, and where creating, responding, and connecting are just as important as performing. This conversation made me remember my “WHY” as a music teacher. Take a listen!

How do we best serve students who have endured trauma and students with special needs? Music educators can always always benefit from support and ideas for building a more welcoming, safe environment for all in our learning spaces. Listen to this uplifting, HOPEFUL conversation we had with Nicole Melrose of StringRise — an org built around helping music educators build thriving and equitable music...

This episode is entitled “Tale As Old As Time.” Featuring musician/ composer Annie Booth of Brava Jazz Publishing, a music publishing company that publishes only jazz music by femme composers — for jazz bands of all playing levels, we engage in an AMAZING amazing convo — all anchored in the “Tale As Old As Time” — that being the ridiculousness regarding the speed bumps, roadblocks, traps, and flat...

The topics we discuss with WA music educator Sarah Hart have to do with shining a light on how the mental health of teachers plays directly into the ways that we can then turn around and serve our students and school community. Unfortunately, the systems we exist within are designed to both keep us perpetually “small” and we are made to believe we need give and give and give and just suck it up. I...

Anyone want to brush up on their nonprofit knowledge? This episode with Laurie DeKoch, Executive Director at  Seattle JazzED  is not to be missed! It is a shame that music educators are not taught more about nonprofits and nonprofit leadership in college. This type of understanding / work tends to be something that we inevitably find ourselves navigating. And, having an understanding of what board...

Broadcasting from the Rochester, NY Hyatt in our “Live From NAfME NE” episode with music educator, pedagogue, and conductor Felipe Morales-Torres from The Bornoff Foundation for the Advancement of String Education ! We got into a deeply riveting discussion about repertoire, and programming, and honoring cultures, and navigating/ working to bring authenticity to the music of various cultures that i...

We had an amazing convo with Adrian Gordon , an outstanding composer, author, and full-time music educator! We talk about the educational music publishing business and roadblocks he’s experienced — causing him to create his own publishing company https://www.adriangordonmusic.com/compositions . He also shares with us about his new book “Note To Self: A Music Director’s Guide to Transitioning to a...

Today we talked with some brave women, Nora and Sasha, from the Roosevelt Jazz Seattle program; sharing about the Little Sibling/ Big Sibling group put in place at RHS to help female and nonbinary jazz students understand that they are welcome, valued, important, and NEEDED! Kudos to these awesome senior leaders, and kudos to their awesome teacher Hannah Mowry . Check this program out — every high...

A fantastic convo with legendary music educator Kate Labiak ! In this episode, we float some revolutionary ideas about the approaches of judges/ clinicians at adjudicated events. Take a listen! There might just be a way to put a little festive back into “festival.”

We had such fun reminiscing with former colleagues Blake Saunders & Jared Sessink, both former Washington Middle School and current Garfield High School music educators. We start to unpack some complexities of these schools, the pipeline, and making big moves in the name of equity.

What a fantastic trip to the Jazz Education Network Conference ‘23! A seriously wonderful conversation with attendees at The Beth and Kelly Show presentation on Saturday about setting the scene in a learning environment where girls feel safe, invited, and inspired to dig into musical improv, joined here as a “warmup” conversation with music/ music education experts from Colorado, Dawn Clement &amp...

We talk with Chris Thomas, band director at Bainbridge Island HS, and we dig into his jazz combo curriculum and innovative small ensemble jazz festival. We talk about how “chamber technique” applies across the board for all levels and how it truly is a key tool for making music with anyone anywhere!

This convo with James Falzone, who oversees all programming at #cornishcollegeofthearts allowed the The Beth and Kelly Show to engage in the big picture dreaming we like to do when we think of how music and arts studies in higher ed could morph to be more and more person-based and reality-based. Cornish is doing some cutting edge things!

This show with music educator, performer, and creativity coach Steve Treseler is still spinning around in our brains. We talk about how imperative it is to teach our students that it is ok and healthy to be creative, and we confront what stops us from doing this as we maneuver within the rigid structures of music education in the US that never really did leave much room for creative decision-makin...

Today’s episode features one of our fave music educators — choral pedagogue and general music specialist , Carol Burton. So many uplifting words of wisdom, stories, and GEMS to be found in Carol’s narrative. You GOTTA listen! You’re not going to regret it.

We were joined by Orlando G Morales, the Associate Artistic Director and Community Engagement Officer at Seattle’s storied Fifth Avenue Theater! We talk about his remarkable life (as a Filipino American, a pro improvising musician, an arts non-profit community change-maker, certified educator, and arts learning standards expert)! LISTEN TO THIS SHOW! There are some amazing ideas and thoughts unear...

We talk about our over-arching philosophy that “the kids can play” — and how as teachers, we sometimes might inadvertently hold students back from “just playing” because we think we have to go through all kinds of complicated steps and procedures before they “start,” so that they are “ready,” putting learning on a long drawn out (potentially unnecessary) timeline. Then, we talk about a miraculous...

This is our Season Two “Soft” Closer. We unpack the incredibly inspiring NAfME National Assembly, all of the rich topics we dug into last week in DC, and all of the 5-alarm emergencies that are happening in our world making teaching and learning extremely difficult (all while the devastating SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v Wade happened). This dovetailed into both of us sharing narrative about why...

As we wrap up what many would consider one of the toughest teaching years on record, it is a great time for secondary instrumental; and choral educators to dream big about ways to utilize the understandings and knowledge we’ve gathered over this trying period about our students, and what really matters. It has been a time of reckoning for many of us as we realize that many of our students (and we)...

Today’s guest was Dr. David Myers, chairperson of the Taskforce on the Undergraduate Music Major, and one of the writers of “Transforming Music Study from Its Foundations: A Manifesto for Progressive Change in the Undergraduate Preparation of Music Majors.” We had an EPIC conversation that really started to give us actual hope that the critical transformation of university level music and music ed...

Today’s show features “music ed power couple” Ruth Boden (low strings specialist) and Dean Luethi (choral specialist) — 2 amazing music faculty members at Washington State University! We dig in to the life-changing aspects (for our students) of participation in music and the flip-side of the coin: navigating the gauntlet of time-honored structures in music ed that have shown (especially in this er...