President's Message
Hi, wonderful music teachers! This is just your friendly reminder to keep moving forward! As we enter into the busy Spring season of the Fine Arts Festival, performances, evaluations, and testing, its easy to get swept away into a sea of obligation and stress. Remember to take one day at a time. Remember to call on the colleagues, family, and friends who help make this season easier with help and encouragement. Remember to just keep pressing forward. You are loved, needed, and important- we've got this!
FMEA
Many of our fantastic music teachers attended the Florida Music Educators Association 2023 Professional Development Conference in January, right here in Tampa! The Tampa Convention Center was filled to bursting with performances, training sessions, resources for purchase, and inspiring reminders of why we pursue music education for all students. Keep scrolling to get a glimpse of our learning time together!
Way to represent! Thanks to Sam Snow and Jon Casañas for a fabulous session geared towards new music teachers. Your expertise is invaluable.
Welcome to the Stage!
We are so grateful and excited to have these wonderful music educators join our elementary music community!
Aaron Calabrese, Oak Park Elementary
Alton Esau, Thompson Elementary
Anna Brown, Forest Hills Elementary
Daniel Darrough, Pride Elementary
Dawn Mitchell White, Mendenhall Elementary
Javier Valderrama, McDonald Elementary
Kendall Camillo, Maniscalco K-8 School
Lauren Jensen, Collins Elementary
Tony Guiliano, Schmidt Elementary
Young Songwriters Symposium
This year the Young Songwriters Symposium proved its flexibility. We had two sessions rescheduled due to tropical storms, a rescheduled field trip to Morris Sound Studio (thanks Jim!!), and a change in recital location again due to a tropical storm. Through it all, we as a songwriting community rolled with the punches to get to what's real--and the songs were real, real good! We're looking forward to our 2023 session in the fall and hope and pray for no more interrupting storms!!!
~Dann Shea and Anita Travaglino, co-coordinators of the YSS
Way to Go!
These schools represented our district during the FMEA conference with students in the All-State Chorus or Orff ensembles. We are so proud of our talented students!
All State Chorus: Bryant, Carrollwood, Claywell, Lowry, Maniscalco, Roosevelt, Tampa Palms, TBK8
All State Orff: Carrollwood and Tampa Palms
Music Will
HCEMEC was able to approve five Music Will Instrument Repair Grants this year. These grants allow teachers the funding to repair broken instruments for their students. Grant recipients included Carole Pearce at Nelson Elementary, Anita Travaglino at Claywell Elementary, Sean Moats at Clark Elementary, Vickie Massmann at Bailey Elementary and Kevin Lyons at Lockhart Elementary Magnet.
Ukulele Professional Development
On Saturday, February 4th, HCEMEC sponsored a Ukulele training led by Lisa Langston from Seminole County. During this session, participating teachers were immersed in fun, educational ways to implement ukulele into the elementary music classroom. Thank you to the teachers who donated their time on a Saturday to continue developing their content knowledge and pedagogical skill for Hillsborough County students.
Upcoming Events
Wednesday, March 1st- Fine Arts Festival 6:30pm at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts
Tuesday, March 28th- HCEMEC Banquet 6-9pm at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts
HCEMEC Leadership
Credits:
Created with images by DenisProduction.com - "Paper hearts with musical notes. Set of paper hearts with musical notes on light wooden background." • artrachen - "Grow coffee beans Plant coffee tree Hand care and watering the trees Evening light in nature" • Es sarawuth - "Microphone on stage with blurred lights. 3D illustration" • Kuznietsov Dmitriy - "Top view of the female's hand writing music notes in the empty sheet music. The concept of the music creating, composing, note writing, music art." • etonastenka - "Confetti scattered on the light blue background. Bright dots on the background." • Sensay - "Education concept - school backpack with books and other supplies, blackboard background" • LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS - "Top view of paper cut music notes on white background" • r_tee - "Theater red curtain on stage wooden floor entertainment background, Red curtain."