Anne Medellin Continued
better understand what you might be needing or seeking. I look forward to seeing you at this year’s Northwest Division Profesional Development Conference. Beth Fortune and I will be presenting a session on Saturday and we invite you to join us. In parting, t’s important to establish a good routine of feeding your professional growth in conjunction with your local and state associations. Stay happy, healthy, engaged, and mindful of your intentions both for you and your community.
inspiring moment in my development as an educator, teacher, and leader. I want to encourage my colleagues to get involved in our colloquiums and forums. This is an opportunity for our council to be creative with YOU in mind. Maybe we need to reach out to higher education leaders to help them feel more connected as our music education systems have been rapidly changing over the last couple of years. I see my role as an advocate for my northwest colleagues, and I urge you to reach me so I can
Celebrating the Life and Work of William Levi Dawson a special recital session at the NAfME Northwest Conference Alabama native and celebrated African-American composer, William Levi Dawson (1899-1990), touched myriad lives with his spirituals and instrumental music. Despite encountering racial barriers in the Jim Crow Era, Dawson achieved his dream of becoming a musician, an educator, and a published composer. From 1930-1955, Dawson presided over the School of Music at Tuskegee Institute (now University) where the Choir rose to national fame under his strong and capable leadership. The Tuskegee Choir was selected to perform at the month- long opening of Radio City Music Hall in 1932-1933, sang at Carnegie Hall in 1933, performed on NBC, CBS, and ABC radio networks from 1937-1951, and appeared on television in the early 1950s. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, only the second extended work for orchestra written by an African American, was premiered in 1934 by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, both in Philadelphia and New York City. 2023 marks the 100th Anniversary of the publication of his first significant composition, “Jump Back Honey, Jump Back,” a setting of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poem, “A Negro Love Song.” Dawson received compositional suggestions from Harry T. Burleigh before the piece was published in 1923. Several celebrations of William Dawson’s 125th birthday will be scheduled in 2024. Having written the seminal work on William Levi Dawson as a dissertation in 1981, Mark Hugh Malone has just com - pleted 4 years of archival research and study. The University Press of Mississippi has accepted the manuscript, “William Levi Dawson: American Music Educator,” with a publication date of April, 2023. The presentation of the narrative of Dawson’s life is enhanced by a PowerPoint of archival photos and ephemera and the performance of six little-known vocal solos written by the composer. The lecture/recital scheduled for Friday, February 17th at 11:30 AM, will feature soprano soloist, Sylvia Jones. Ms. Jones, whose hometown is Auburn, Washington, is cur - rently a candidate for the Masters degree in Church Music at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Mark Hugh Malone, a veteran music educator with over 46 years of classroom experience from preschool through college, is a frequent presenter at conventions for music educators. With multiple degrees in music education and experi - ence with the National Arts Standards, Malone has created arts integration curricula for the Mississippi Arts Commission which includes: The Mississippi Blues Trail and Beyond (2013), Mississippi History Through the Arts: A Bicentennial Journey (2017), Footprints in the Dust: The Natchez Trace (2019), as well as S.T.E.A.M. (S.T.E.M plus the Arts) lesson plans forthcom - ing in 2023.
Voice of Washington Music Educators Association January 2023
14
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online