Matthew Garrett & Joshua Palkki
Session 4
Thursday March 10th - 11:00am
Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Singers
Session Description
Trans and gender-expansive (TGE) singers deserve safe and empowering spaces to engage in high-quality choral music experiences. Drawing from their new Oxford University Press book, Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Students in Music Education, the presenters will provide context and practical suggestions for working with students who inhabit a variety of spaces among gender-identity and gender expression continuums. Stories and lived experiences of TGE collaborators and their school music teachers will anchor inclusive ideas for honoring students in choral music classrooms. Choral director-educators will have opportunities to reflect on their own choral settings, engage in discussion of policies, consider instructional strategies, and practice healthy group vocal techniques (e.g. semi-occluded vocal tract exercises) that will honor singers from all age groups.
Clinician Bio
Matthew L. Garrett is Associate Professor of Music Education, Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies in Music Education, and Director of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE) at Case Western Reserve University. Originally from South Carolina, he holds a Bachelor of Music Education, and a PhD in Choral Music Education and Conducting from Florida State University, and a Master of Music degree in Conducting from Boston University.
Joshua Palkki serves as Assistant Professor of Music Education at California State University, Long Beach. He received his PhD in music education from Michigan State University. Palkki earned a master’s degree in choral conducting at Northern Arizona University, and an undergraduate degree in music education from Ball State University.