Classical MPR's new Teacher Feature highlights the lives and work of music teachers throughout Minnesota.
Woody Woodward
Lower School General Music Teacher
School: The Blake School, Highcroft Campus
Wayzata, Minn.
Who or what inspired you to become a music teacher?
My junior high and high school choir teacher offered up inspiring choral music experiences. I recall times when the music we explored and performed touched me to my core, when I had that unexplainable vitality to expressively being in the present.
I recall a formative experience in ninth grade, when I sang the boy soprano solo in Bernstein's Chichester Psalms at Northrop Auditorium. There were four high school choirs and the U of M Symphony Orchestra. The uniqueness of Bernstein's music with the driving rhythmic syncopation and stunning melodies were fresh and new to my life experience. That was a turning point in my life.
Where did you go to college?
I attended Concordia College, Moorhead for my B.A. and University of St. Thomas for my Master of Arts in Music Education, with further studies at the Orff Institute, Salzburg, Austria.
What would you say is your primary instrument?
The voice.
Which grade levels do you teach?
Kindergarten through fifth grade.
What types of music classes do you teach?
Our general music program has an Orff-based approach at the core. Students experience vocal and elemental instrumental music first through imitation. Movement is integrated into the experienced sounds and silences, reflecting the expressive elements. What is imitated is further explored utilizing music and movement ideas, leaning towards students being co-constructors of their knowledge.
Do you direct any ensembles?
Yes, the fifth-grade choir.
In what ways do you try to encourage your students to appreciate and participate in music?
The approach in the Blake Lower School music classroom encourages all students to be active participants in their musical experience through speaking, singing, moving and playing percussive instruments. Everyone is encouraged to enter into all experience no matter what level of ability or knowledge. The music is the inspiration. The music teacher is the facilitator for students to tap into their personal expressive potential and appreciation.
Where do you see music education fitting into a child's school education?
Experiences where one is encouraged to share unique expressions and to find creative solutions to musical problems give students an opportunity to develop aesthetic sensitivity, to know themselves and their potential, to know their local and global community, and ultimately, to be creative participants in their world.
Music is a lens that allows us to see, hear, feel, know and appreciate other areas such as science (e.g. vibration), math (e.g. rhythm and time) and history (e.g. eras). This is all valuable. But music does not need to be found to benefit other areas to be justified. The existence and interplay with music is benefit enough.
What's one of the most memorable moments you've had in the classroom (or had while teaching music)?
An activity that is memorable to me is in fifth grade, where students create a musical expression in a small group with no strict structure or musical form. It is fascinating to be able to step back and observe how students go about taking creative risks and bringing forth their interpersonal skills, discussing and analyzing their creative ideas. While students seem like they are in the flow state of creativity, they decide what they want to include in their creation. This activity shows students valuing other students' thoughts and offering up their own ideas. The resulting musical piece, often unfinished, is shared with the class. This lesson shows our classroom is one of those places where community may be developed and nurtured.
Do you have a story of an experience where music education made a difference in a student's life?
Each spring, the fifth grade puts on an original musical, with all students participating as actors and musicians — singing, playing instruments and dancing. It is an experience where students are a part of something larger than themselves. Each child's individual participation is essential to the overall production. I love being a facilitator and musician, right alongside the students.
Speaking of that, do you participate in music outside the classroom?
I have sung with various Twin Cities professional choirs, including the Dale Warland Singers and the Ensemble Singers from the formerly named Plymouth Music Series (which is now called VocalEssence). I have also sung in various musical theater productions at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres and at the Guthrie Theater.
If you were to help program a day of music at Classical MPR, what are pieces of music you'd play in the morning and in the evening? The Promise of Living by Aaron Copland for morning, and in the evening, I'd pick the instrumental piece Musical Celestis (for String Orchestra) by Aaron Kernis, and the choral piece Water Night by Eric Whitacre.
What is it about these pieces that make them among your favorites?
Each of these pieces moves and touches me in spiritual and emotional ways. Perhaps it is Musical Celestis' similarity to the arch of Barber's Adagio for Strings, or the subtle text painting in Water Night that calls me back to a sense-filled time in Salzburg, Austria and the Salzach River.
Music has the capability to transform my mood and being.
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As part of Classical MPR's educational programming, we are highlighting the lives and work of music teachers throughout Minnesota.
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