Emily McKinney
Culturally Responsive Music Programming for Secondary Choirs
Thursday, March 5th 9am
Session Description
This interest session will attempt to demystify the concept of diversifying your repertoire by providing practical tools based on research on culturally responsive teaching and methods of programming. Repertoire selection is a critical part of the work of a secondary choral music educator; but it can feel time consuming, costly, and increasingly fraught as we seek to break down systemic biases our music libraries perpetuate. This session will define important terms related to culturally responsive music programming, provide an overview of current best practices, and provide directors with two practical tools for programming in their own work: a template for tracking music selections that creates a culture-focused overview of the pieces they are programming, and a guiding framework of probing questions to ensure music selections are culturally responsive. Identity groups addressed include racial/ethnic minority groups; the LGBTQ+ community; religious beliefs and practices; communities of persons with disabilities; and others.
Clinician Bio
Emily McKinney is the choir director at Mead High School in Spokane, WA, where she has taught for seven years - starting during COVID. Her teaching style and outlook have been profoundly impacted by the uncertain climate in which her career began and the changes that both she and her students have undergone – from A-day/B-day masked choir 9-feet apart, to publicly coming out to her community as bisexual (and her wife as transgender) in a conservative city with a volatile political climate. These experiences have given her a passion for serving LGBTQ+ and other marginalized students in her community through her classroom teaching, SAGA (Sexuality and Gender Alliance), and Hope Squad (a peer-to-peer mental health assistance program). She earned her Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from WGU in October 2024, and the topic of this presentation was the culmination of her thesis research.