Tennessee teacher selected for national symposium
Congratulations to Rita Black for 13 years of service in General Music and Choir and recipient of 2017 Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award
From The Yale School of Music –
Rita Black teaches music in Nashville, where she is a school leader, mentors pre-service teachers, directs theater and choir, and presents workshops for educators. She holds a BME from the University of Central Oklahoma and is a member of the National Association for Music Education and the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, having served as a committee co-chair in 2014. She is an advisor for music curriculum and serves as a peer reviewer for the Tennessee Fine Arts Growth Measures System. Black is a 2016 Teaching Fellow at Tennessee’s State Collaborative on Reforming Education, where she focuses on education-policy issues, and was named a Music Teacher of Excellence in 2016 by the Nashville Public Education Foundation and the Country Music Association Foundation.
The sixth Symposium on Music in Schools takes place June 15 – 17, 2017 on the Yale campus. The 2017 Symposium will mark 10 years since the Music in Schools Initiative was officially launched. The biennial Symposium was made possible by an endowment created by the Yale College Class of 1957.
The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2017 Yale Distinguished Music Educator Awards. Ten music teachers representing city school districts will be honored in June at YSM’s Symposium on Music in Schools.
Awardees were identified and nominated in partnership with the National Association for Music Education and the VH1 Save the Music Foundation. Awardees were selected in recognition of their innovative approaches to music education, their dedication to their urban communities, and their unwavering desire to make a substantial difference in the lives of students and families.
Recipients of the 2017 Yale Distinguished Music Educator Awards have been invited to New Haven to attend this year’s Symposium, which will focus on the role that music-making plays in America’s city schools.
“The Yale School of Music is continuing its tradition of recognizing exceptional music teachers working in schools across the United States,” YSM Associate Dean Michael Yaffe said. “This year, we’re focusing specifically on the leadership of educators in city schools, whose work is made more critical by a growing disparity in opportunities for music making in America’s cities.”
