Teaching Music in Waldorf Education
11:30 to 1:30 pm Pacific time - Subject Specific Presentations from Leading Teachers
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Each afternoon from 11:30 to 2:30 Pacific time music teachers will gather together for presentations and discussions specifically relevant to teaching music in Waldorf education.
Topics will include:
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Steiner's indications and the "WHY" behind teaching music grades 1-8
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Developmentally appropriate music content throughout the grades
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Meeting and engaging today's children (classroom management, time management, curriculum development/lesson planning)
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Creating space for sharing challenges, successes, and resources
2:00 to 2:30pm Pacific time - Subject Specific Artistic Work
Discovering the Composer Within
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Come discover, express, and develop your own unique compositional style through improvisation and the use of theoretical understanding. Learn techniques to help the compositional voices of your students emerge!
Meet the Music Team!
We are honored to be working with an amazing team of music teachers who are teaching and leading this portion of the conference!
Jayanthi Bunyan
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As the general music and chorus director at the Brooklyn Waldorf School, Jayanthi Bunyan teaches students of all ages, organizes student performances, and leads communities in song. Jayanthi’s curriculum strives for an embodied approach to music making through movement, play, and active listening. With over fifteen years of teaching experience, she has worked in public schools in Colorado, New York, and Kolkata, India. As a classically trained Western vocalist, Jayanthi has performed at numerous venues, including the Boettcher Concert Hall at the Denver Performing Arts Center and the Kolkata Jazz Festival. Jayanthi has a BA from SUNY Fredonia and an MA from CU Boulder, both in Music Education.
Melanie Whitney
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Melanie is a song leader, composer, singing voice specialist, and music educator currently living in Western Massachusetts. She is a mom of two, director of the Spirit Song Singers, facilitator of various music share events in the Pioneer Valley, and teacher of K-12 music at The Hartsbrook School in Hadley, MA where she serves as the Music Department Chair. Melanie holds a BM in Music Education from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ and a certificate of Waldorf Music Education from the Sunbridge Institute in Chestnut Ridge, NY.
Music has always been a driving force in Melanie’s life and she is so immensely grateful for the meaningful and connective experiences she has been afforded because of its many gifts. Over time, she has come to know music as a wise and ever present healer, a dear friend, a distant memory, a soul salve, a humble teacher, a thought provoker, a truth seeker, a story teller, an expression of culture, and a manifestation of human evolution. Most importantly, she views music as a divine force that brings people together and brings us home to ourselves. Melanie feels blessed, daily, to be using music for healing and humanization in this broken world.
