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From The President

From The President 1165364 STA AMERICAN STRING TEACHERWWW.ASTAWEB.COM FROM THE PRESIDENT BY REBECCA MACLEOD Dear String Community, The role of an association is to engage in work together over time that otherwise cannot be accomplished by individuals alone. I learned this guiding principle in January during a leadership symposium that CEO Lynn Tuttle, President-elect Karin Hendricks, and I attended. Volunteers, our members, join associations for benefits, but more importantly, to be part of a community with shared values, goals, and ideals. The most powerful resource we have as an organization are the members and the work that members contribute to the overall shared goals of our community. I am grateful to be part of an organization whose vision is “to provide universal access to string teaching, playing, and learning.” The ASTA board adopted a new strategic plan in May 2022— https://bit.ly/ASTAStrategicPlan2022-2025 —and I would like to provide some updates on what we have accomplished as an organization during this past year. These accomplishments encompass the work of our volunteer members and staff. The beauty of an organization such as ours is that the leaders are ALL VOLUNTEERS! That means the work we engage in is intrinsically guided by our collective passion as a community. We have so much to celebrate. One major accomplishment this past year was the generous $100,000 grant we received from the Sphinx Organization to support the commissioning and publication of accessible works for students written by historically excluded composers. ASTA, alongside the American Choral Directors Association and Rising Tide Press, applied for and received this grant. The project will culminate in the creation of 12 new string works and 12 new choral works written for school ensembles. The pieces will eventually be published by Hal Leonard Publishing Company. The theme of our National Conference this year was Building a More Inclusive Community . Keynote speakers Julie Duty from United Sound and Constance McKoy co-author of Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music were sensational. The performances by violin virtuoso Adrian Anantawan and the Howard Blake School of the Performing Arts under the direction of Jason Jerald were breathtaking. These speakers and performers were purposefully selected because of their work toward building more inclusive educational models. Members shared with me how inspired they were by the opening session and how their minds were opened to so many possibilities as we plan for our future. Consistent with our conference theme, ASTA is committed to continuing to build a more inclusive community by expanding access to string instruction. This goal can only be reached through collaboration and increasing the number of qualified string teachers in the United States. We have joined the National Music Teacher Shortage Coalition to begin envisioning how to reduce barriers and increase pathways to becoming a music teacher, and specifically a string teacher. We also joined forces with the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in December 2022, and the National Association for Music Merchants in April 2023, to offer hands-on immersive sessions designed to provide professional development for non-string primaries currently teaching strings. In the new strategic plan, we committed to creating a wider variety of professional development opportunities for our members. To that end, we offered a series of webinars, built on-demand content, added the Virtual String Teachers Summit , and continued the annual national conference. If you have not attended or participated in these opportunities, you can see the on-demand virtual content here https://bit.ly/3dQPXgx. Even better, you can still register for and attend the Virtual String Teachers Summit, July 17-18 - https://bit.ly/3LgbRZ8 As I mentioned above, the benefit of belonging to an association is the work that we do together across time. If you are interested in volunteering to serve in any capacity, please consider nominating yourself for one of our committees. You can find the open call for volunteers here. I hope to work alongside you as we share the love of music making with others. Rebecca B. MacLeod American String Teacher Vol. 73, No. 2, May 2023, p. 1 DOI: 10.1177/00031313231165364 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Copyright © 2023, American String Teachers Association WWW.ASTASTRINGS.ORG | 1 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American String Teacher SAGE

From The President

MacLeod, Rebecca
American String Teacher , Volume 73 (2): 1 – May 1, 2023
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SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © 2023, American String Teachers Association
ISSN
0003-1313
eISSN
2515-4842
DOI
10.1177/00031313231165364
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Abstract

1165364 STA AMERICAN STRING TEACHERWWW.ASTAWEB.COM FROM THE PRESIDENT BY REBECCA MACLEOD Dear String Community, The role of an association is to engage in work together over time that otherwise cannot be accomplished by individuals alone. I learned this guiding principle in January during a leadership symposium that CEO Lynn Tuttle, President-elect Karin Hendricks, and I attended. Volunteers, our members, join associations for benefits, but more importantly, to be part of a community with shared values, goals, and ideals. The most powerful resource we have as an organization are the members and the work that members contribute to the overall shared goals of our community. I am grateful to be part of an organization whose vision is “to provide universal access to string teaching, playing, and learning.” The ASTA board adopted a new strategic plan in May 2022— https://bit.ly/ASTAStrategicPlan2022-2025 —and I would like to provide some updates on what we have accomplished as an organization during this past year. These accomplishments encompass the work of our volunteer members and staff. The beauty of an organization such as ours is that the leaders are ALL VOLUNTEERS! That means the work we engage in is intrinsically guided by our collective passion as a community. We have so much to celebrate. One major accomplishment this past year was the generous $100,000 grant we received from the Sphinx Organization to support the commissioning and publication of accessible works for students written by historically excluded composers. ASTA, alongside the American Choral Directors Association and Rising Tide Press, applied for and received this grant. The project will culminate in the creation of 12 new string works and 12 new choral works written for school ensembles. The pieces will eventually be published by Hal Leonard Publishing Company. The theme of our National Conference this year was Building a More Inclusive Community . Keynote speakers Julie Duty from United Sound and Constance McKoy co-author of Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music were sensational. The performances by violin virtuoso Adrian Anantawan and the Howard Blake School of the Performing Arts under the direction of Jason Jerald were breathtaking. These speakers and performers were purposefully selected because of their work toward building more inclusive educational models. Members shared with me how inspired they were by the opening session and how their minds were opened to so many possibilities as we plan for our future. Consistent with our conference theme, ASTA is committed to continuing to build a more inclusive community by expanding access to string instruction. This goal can only be reached through collaboration and increasing the number of qualified string teachers in the United States. We have joined the National Music Teacher Shortage Coalition to begin envisioning how to reduce barriers and increase pathways to becoming a music teacher, and specifically a string teacher. We also joined forces with the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in December 2022, and the National Association for Music Merchants in April 2023, to offer hands-on immersive sessions designed to provide professional development for non-string primaries currently teaching strings. In the new strategic plan, we committed to creating a wider variety of professional development opportunities for our members. To that end, we offered a series of webinars, built on-demand content, added the Virtual String Teachers Summit , and continued the annual national conference. If you have not attended or participated in these opportunities, you can see the on-demand virtual content here https://bit.ly/3dQPXgx. Even better, you can still register for and attend the Virtual String Teachers Summit, July 17-18 - https://bit.ly/3LgbRZ8 As I mentioned above, the benefit of belonging to an association is the work that we do together across time. If you are interested in volunteering to serve in any capacity, please consider nominating yourself for one of our committees. You can find the open call for volunteers here. I hope to work alongside you as we share the love of music making with others. Rebecca B. MacLeod American String Teacher Vol. 73, No. 2, May 2023, p. 1 DOI: 10.1177/00031313231165364 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Copyright © 2023, American String Teachers Association WWW.ASTASTRINGS.ORG | 1

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American String Teacher – SAGE

Published: May 1, 2023

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