Portfolio

In May of 2015, I graduated with my BA in Piano Pedagogy from Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, WI. Maranatha has full Regional Accreditation by North Central Accreditation which also provides the same level of accreditation to University of Minnesota—Twin Cities and University of Wisconsin—River Falls. While at Maranatha, I taught private piano lessons for five semesters in Maranatha’s Piano Prep School, plus I taught piano my senior year of high school in northern WI. Other teaching experiences include training musicians how to use features on organs, teaching theory classes, introductory group piano classes, and early childhood music and movement classes. During my college years, I received two scholarships. One was for volunteer church involvement, and the other was the Elmer F. Brown Jr. Memorial Music Scholarship. I received the Maranatha Piano Prep School Piano Teacher of the Year award in 2015. I desire to learn as much as I can, so during college I took numerous extra classes which were not required for my degree which caused me to graduate with about 28.5 more credits than I needed to graduate.

In May of 2018, I graduated with my MA in Church Music from Maranatha Baptist Seminary in Watertown, WI. The coursework was a rigorous pursuit, but I learned so much and am grateful for the increased knowledge and networking with additional colleagues and expanded horizon of books and other resources from which I will continue to learn. MTNA-LOGO I am a certified member of MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) which means I can write NCTM (Nationally Certified Teacher of Music) with my name. To become a certified member of MTNA, I had to complete a variety of reading, writing, recording, and evaluating assignments about music teaching in general and my own music teaching in particular. I see the huge importance of continuing my knowledge of music teaching after college graduation and also to keep my MTNA certification up, I continue to learn from reading teaching materials, writing articles, attending workshops, and connecting with people from my profession as well as from other professions. To keep connections with local music teachers and to learn from each other, I am a member of the St. Croix Valley Music Teachers Association which is a local division of MTNA.Providing students an opportunity to perform for a judge and to compete with him/herself is important. Therefore, I have been a part of the American College of Musicians/National Guild of Piano Teachers which allows students to perform for a judge and to hear positive comments about the piece(s). Guild has a great advantage to many other competitions in that a student does not compete against other students. Each student is judged accordingly to how he/she performed at his/her own musical ability and is not compared to how other students performed. This allows for the student to not become discouraged with competing against other students. I also earned a Collegiate Level 1 Certification from Early Childhood Music and Movement Association. Using my education in early childhood music, I taught various age groups at Kiddie Kampus which is a daycare in Watertown, WI. I continue to incorporate those musical ideas in my teaching.ECMMA LogoMusic can be used in a variety of settings and ways. Here is a listing of other musical avenues I have pursued:

  • Organ performance and teaching
  • 1st Tenor in choir (though my range is from G2-Eb5)Singing Range
  • Choir Conducting
  • Trumpet
  • Violin
  • String Pedagogy Class
  • Accordion
  • Xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone, and chimes in a percussion ensemble
  • Tone chimes
  • Hand bells

Here are some recordings of my conducting. Some of the pieces are quite lengthy so I will only show portions of the pieces. More information on my conducting can be found at: http://nowmusicstudio.com/summary-of-music-masters-conducting-module