The 2012 Convention will be held at the DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) Hyatt on June 16-19. The theme is “Over the Rainbow.” Aside from the seven ensemble concerts, performance competitions (piano, voice, orchestral instruments, and piano duets) and dozens of informative sessions, we will be hosting Gayle Kowalchyk, Helen Marlais, and Richard Dowling. Dr. Bill Moore will be giving our key-note address and conducting a workshop about incorporating performance psychology into your teaching. Guest artist, Arsentiy Kharitonov, will perform in recital on Friday evening and conduct a master-class with several high school student pianists on major works on Saturday. The Collegiate Conference on Sunday will feature presentations by collegiate chapter members and a special session on pre-collegiate group teaching by Dr. Scott Donald. Also, on Sunday, an interdenominational worship service is planned with inspiring music and guest speaker Ron Brand, Major League Scout with the New York Yankees. More information may be found by visiting our website at WWW.tmta.org. The TMTEF Trustees will award over $40,000 in student awards at this convention in June.

Our MTNA Foundation Fellow from Texas is Janelle Schlaudt, NCTM, TMTA Immediate Past President.

The MTNA/TMTA Auditions were held in Waco, Texas on November 14-15, at Baylor University. Christina Chen and Sara Miller, NCTM chaired the event and were assisted by Cindy Hessong. This year, we had 91 solo musicians registered in the categories of Woodwind, Piano, String, Voice, and Brass, plus one Piano Duet, one Piano Trio and eight Chamber Music groups. Ten soloists, one piano duet and one string Chamber Music group will compete at the MTNA Conference in New York City.

Our database was completed and now information can be stored more efficiently and reports can be generated more timely. In this age of technological advances, TMTA has joined the throng of followers on Facebook; we established a group page. We also installed “QuickBooks online” and can access and update all of our financial information much quicker. We have installed the capability for online voting (for new officers and board members) that will take place this spring.

The TMTA Trustees are planning a teacher enrichment workshop/seminar to coincide with the MTNA/TMTA performance competitions in November. We applied for an MTNA affiliate grant to help make this workshop more affordable for our teachers.

Association News

02/03/2011

Our 2011 Convention will be held in Arlington, Texas on June 16-19. The theme this year is "Play It Again, TMTA" and convention planner Debra Hadfield, NCTM promises an exciting experience for all who attend. Featured guest clinicians for the weekend include Randall Faber (Couresty of Faber Piano Adventures and Pender's Music Company), Melody Bober (courtesy of Dowling Music Company and Alfred Publishing) and Tony Caramia. Mr. Faber will present sessions on the "Stages of Talent Development: The Facilitative Factors & Age-Appropriate Teaching" and then work with students in a piano master class. Mrs. Bober's session is titled "Energize Your Studio" and she will share tips for creating a positive lesson experience in five "SE" areas - student envorinment, studio engagement, studio entertainment, studio excitement and studio excellence. Guest artist, Tony Caramia will perform "An American Journey" recital which will feature pieces with the word "American" as part of the title and explore the styles and sounds of such composers as Carpenter, Ginastera and Gould and will then perform a jazz-inspired tour of music highlighting such cites as New Orleans, Chicago and San Francisco. John and Nancy Weems will conduct master classes that will focus on Classical and Romantic Styles. The opening general session features keynote speaker Martha Hilley, NCTM and a performance by the Kilgore College Keyboard Orchestra. The Collegiate Conference consists of presentations by collegiate chapter members and a master-master class conducted by popular pedagogue, Jane Magrath. A Sunday morning interdenominational worship service is planned with inspiring music and message from Hector Guzman, Music Director of the Plano, Irving and San Angelo Symphonies. The state officers will host a leadership session by presenting tips for conducting meetings, improving communication, increasing membership and organizing materials. Other contests and recitals include ensemble music contest (Chamber music), All-Star Festival, Performance Contest semi-finals/finals, digital keyboard orchestra reading sessions, Ensemble concerts, and original composition winners recital. Thirty sessions will be presented for teachers, students, and guests.

This past year has been one of great sorrow for TMTA as we experienced the loss of one of our past presidents (Mary Loving, NCTM, 1993-1995) and the recently elected President, Diane Delk, NCTM. Many of us remember them for their leadership and experience and for the time they so generously shared with TMTA.

So, even though our nation is still experiencing a time of hardship and financial struggle, TMTA joins MTNA and moves foward with enthusiasm and dedication to musical art.

This Fall in TMTA

01/11/2010

TMTA is planning to have representation at the TMEA Conference in February in San Antonio. We have TMTA members who typically attend TMEA, and they will work to set up a TMTA booth and to represent TMTA at collegiate events. It is a huge plus that we have teachers in both organizations who can ably represent us - this saves considerable money for TMTA. We are hoping that this will continue to build a coalition between our two large groups to better support our teachers and students. We will receive reports from the involved teachers, who include Celinda Hallbauer who is an expert on both organizations. We will evaluate the results and plan for ways to optimize our involvement in our sister organization for future years.

In August the TMTA Board established some financial aid for collegiate chapter members to attend our state convention in June. There are some detailed guildelines for the chapters to receive the funds. It is hoped that the students will find this helpful in their efforts to attend our convention. After this June's convention, we will evaluate the success of this program and see if it needs changes.

Likewise, the TMTA Board established some stipends for some directors to attend the MTNA Conference. We hope the assistance will allow TMTA to have more individuals benefit from the MTNA Conference experience, to attend meetings and sessions, and to bring what they learn to TMTA. In June at the next Board meeting, we hope to receive reports and to determine how helpful the stipends have been and how much information we are able to get back into the hands of the Board and membership.

We are working on many changes in our website. Most significant involves the use of a secure server to enable use of credit card payments for various ordering and registration functions. We have tentatively set the goal of making all of our student event enrollments possible via secure server. We will evaluate that process this year and in June we will discuss whether we want to expand the secure payment applications to include more of our student related events.

Trying to expand membership and enhance the services we provide to our membership is an ongoing goal. This year, we are continuing to try to make contact with non renewing members in a private and tactful way, if possible. In addition, we are expanding the leadership and professional development offerings at our convention. After this year's convention in June, we will evaluate the teacher response, both in relative popularity of sessions and sessions feedback to determine if our convention is meeting the needs of our membership.

We have a large performance contest on the state level, which has been a worthy undertaking and is very popular with our membership. As is the case for the MTNA Competitions, it is a big and expensive undertaking. This June we will be in the third year of a major restructuring of that competition, and we will be studying the results. Our process is generally to establish an ad hoc committee for study of large projects, and I would anticipate that we will establish a committee to study this large event and to report to the TMTA Officers by mid summer and the TMTA Board of Directors by late summer.

Our President-Elect, Debra Hadfield, and our Vice President for Student Activities, Karen Wallace, spent a great deal of time in August and September researching and organizing our archives. While this is not an entirely new project, continuing maintenance of archives gives us valuable information for the future. For example, it was important to know exactly how many years of conventions we have had, as we are approaching our centennial, and a big centennial celebration is anticipated. This celebration will not only be fun - and we all need a little more fun - it will also provide esprit de corps and a focus for self evaluation of our profession - how we're doing "then and now". 2011 is the 97th convention, so we have a few more years to develop ideas and focus for that important event.

For several years, in Officer and Board meetings, when people have been asked to brainstorm ideas and goals, the common thread is membership. Many of the goals and ideas that come out of our brainstorming have been teacher/member focused. We have focused much of our effort this year on things that will benefit our members, active and collegiate. By next summer, I hope we will receive a lot of feedback on what is helpful and what needs to be changed, expanded or discontinued.

Convention 2010

30/06/2010

Our 2010 Convention, "It's Time to Play", was held June 10-14, 2010 in Arlington, Texas at the magnificent Arlington Convention Center.

Convention began with the Semi-finals of our TMTA Student Affiliate Performance Contests with approximately 225 entrants who were winners of their local associations competitions. The competition was sponsored by Steinway of Dallas/Fort Worth,Texas Music Teachers Educational Foundation and TMTA.

Attended by approximately 6,000 teachers, students and guests, Convention 2010 featured events for a wide variety of "players", from the academic to the inspirational to the recreational.

New this year was "Kidz Kamp" - an area specifically devoted to younger siblings of student performers, and children attending the Convention as guests. It featured a hands-on musical experience includling live-online music appreciation, a walk-on piano keyboard and an instrument petting zoo. Young adult student/teachers and parents attended with the "kidz" to make their experience rewarding.

We were entertained at our opening General Session by a cheerful and uplifting concert presented by the Upscale Quartet, an award-winning barbershop quartet from the Arlington Goodtimes Chorus.

Both our opening General Session and our opening student Ensemble Concert featured Color Guards from the community. The United States Marine Corps and the Boy Scouts of America provided this service. Piano Gallery of Dallas, the Yamaha representative in Dallas, sponsored our Ensemble Concerts and rehearsal labs.

Our second General Session featured our Commissioned Composer, Debra Scroggins, as well as a recital with several new college faculty from Texas.

This year's featured guest was Dennis Alexander, who presented an exciting Intermediate Master Class featuring Romantic Music. Thanks to Alfred Music Publishers and Pender's Music Company for their sponsorship of this event.

Our third General Session featured our Delegate Assembly along with election results and team building activities. It was an exciting, educational and energizing Convention!