Each year the Center for Music Learning hosts 3-5-day residencies by internationally recognized artist-teachers. The individuals selected as Distinguished Teachers represent the very finest musicians who have dedicated themselves to teaching music. The diversity of the Distinguished Teachers selected—performing artists, private teachers, public school teachers, college faculty—reflects the Center's working philosophy that there are common principles that underlie all music teaching and learning, irrespective of instrument, genre, culture, and age and experience of the learner. It is this set of common principles that the Distinguished Teacher Series serves to illuminate.
The public lectures, teaching demonstrations, performances, and discussion sessions that the Distinguished Teachers Series comprises bring together teachers, performers, and scholars from all levels of instruction in interdisciplinary sessions with leading artist-teachers. The design of each artist-teacher's residency includes a variety of large and small-group sessions that permit performers, scholars, teachers, and students from the University and the Austin community to participate in unique interactive activities.
Each Distinguished Teacher's residency includes (1) a public lecture about music teaching, (2) a "teaching master class," in which the guest artist observes and critiques the teaching of several of our students, (3) a public teaching demonstration, and (4) a public performance.
Past Distinguished Teacher Honorees 2002-2016
Vijay Gupta, Founder of Street Symphony, member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Residency: 14-15 September, 2015
Richard Beene, Dean, Chair of Winds and Chamber Music, and Professor of Bassoon, Colburn Conservatory of Music
Residency: 7-10 October, 2013
Jim Walker, Professor of Flute and Chamber Music, Colburn Conservatory and Professor of Practice and Coordinator of Flute Studies, Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California
Residency: 17-21 September 2012
Scott McCoy, Professor of Voice and Pedagogy, Director of the Presser Music Center Voice Laboratory, and Director of Graduate Studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University
Residency: 31 January to 2 February 2011
Joseph Alessi, Principal Trombone, The Gurnee F. and Marjorie L. Hart Chair, The New York Philharmonic
Residency: 13 September to 16 September and 26 September 2010
H. Robert Reynolds, Professor of Wind Conducting, University of Southern California
Residency: 30 November to 3 December 2009
Bruce Holzman, Professor of Guitar, The Florida State University
Residency: 16-19 November 2009
Joseph Flummerfelt, Professor Emeritus, Westminster Choir College
Residency: 18-22 April 2009
Stephen Clapp, Professor of Violin and Dean Emeritus, The Juilliard School
Residency: 24-26 September 2008
Raymond Crisara, Professor of Trumpet Emeritus, The University of Texas at Austin
Residency: 10-12 April 2007
Yehuda Gilad, Professor of Clarinet, University of Southern California
Residency: 6-9 February 2006
Weston Noble, Director of Music Activities, Luther College
Residency: 11-14 October 2005
Aldo Parisot, Professor of Cello, Yale University
Residency: 10-14 April 2005
Eliot Fisk, Professor of Guitar, Mozarteum, Salzburg, and New England Conservatory of Music
Residency: 23-27 February 2004
Donald McInnes, Professor of Viola, University of Southern California
Residency: 31 March - 2 April 2003
Richard Killmer, Professor of Oboe, Eastman School of Music and Yale University
Residency: 18-20 February 2003
Nelita True, Professor of Piano, Eastman School of Music
Residency: 25-27 September 2002