Rachel Grimsby, Stephanie Schall-Brazee, and Emily Maurek
Saturday, July 16th: 9:45 – 10:45 AM
Phillips Music Center Recital Hall
First Steps in Music is an instructional method based on the principle of growing tuneful, beatful, and artful children. First Steps in Music allows children to create community with each other while developing their ability to hear tunes and sing those tunes, to feel the pulse of music, and how that pulse is grouped in either 2s or 3s, and to be moved by and respond to music in a meaningful way.
This session, First Steps in Music: An Introduction is meant to give a brief background and overview of the 8 part process and how to implement it in your music classroom. Participants will also experience a modeled lesson, and take part of activities that will allow them to develop tuneful, beatful, and artful children in upper elementary as well.
Rachel Grimsby has 13 years experience in elementary music education. She holds degrees from East Carolina University and The Hartt School of Music. She has obtained certification in all four Orff levels as well as all three Kodaly levels. She has also obtained certification in all three FAME levels and is a teacher trainer for Conversational Solfege levels one and two. She has presented at regional, state and national conferences.
Rachel is also blessed with an amazing family; her husband Greg, daughter Annabelle and son Benjamin.
Stephanie Schall-Brazee is an elementary music teacher for the Traverse City Area Public Schools where she also directs the high school select Women’s Choir, Bella Voce. As a choral director, Stephanie’s choirs have consistently earned first degree ratings at festivals, and have been invited to perform at the Michigan Music Conference in Grand Rapids, MI. In addition to her public school teaching, Stephanie is also on the faculty of the Northwestern Michigan College Children’s Choirs where she directs the Lyric and Prelude Choirs. Stephanie’s training includes a Bachelor of Music Education Degree from Central Michigan University and a Master of Music Education Degree from the Hartt School, where she was a graduate assistant to Dr. John Feierabend. In addition to her teaching, Stephanie has served as a clinician presenting sessions on “Singing Development in Young Children,” “Music and Movement in Preschool” and “Conversational Solfege.” She is an endorsed Teacher Trainer for First Steps in Music.
Emily Maurek is in her 20th year teaching General Music and Chorus and is currently teaching Kindergarten through fourth grade at Bibich and Peifer Elementary Schools with the Lake Central School Corporation in Northwest Indiana, where she utilizes both First Steps and Conversational Solfege. Her Feierabend journey began at Silver Lake College in 2008 and she has since earned FAME Certification and is an Endorsed Teacher Trainer in the First Steps in Music method. She graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Music Education from Ball State University and holds a Masters degree in Music Technology from Indiana University.
