March is Women's History Month, and I Can Compose director and MT editorial advisory board member Rachel Shapey has put together another one of her ingenious ‘listening calendars’. Her first initiative of this kind was a Black History Month calendar for October, although, as she says in this issue, her vision with both resources is ‘to not only get people listening to these great composers, but to keep listening’. A composer who could feature on both these calendars (and does on the first) is Florence Price, and on p.52 Shapey reviews Who is Florence Price?, a new book for children written by students at Kaufman Music Centre's Special Music School in New York.
If you're looking for guidance on choosing pop repertoire for the classroom, p.28 offers a focus feature – this month's theme is Pop, Rock & Jazz – from Guy Swinton (which has happily enabled us to justify including a picture of Harry Styles in MT). Of course, while the music we choose to expose our students to is hugely important, especially when it comes to the repertoire of under-represented composers, repertoire lists are of limited use if our students don't know how to listen to the music they're hearing. On p.30, Dr Elizabeth Stafford tackles this, providing you with practical information to take straight back to your classrooms.
Elsewhere, we find out more about Rocksteady Music School and Trinity College London's new qualification for primary pupils (p.14) and hear from new jazz lecturers at Leeds Conservatoire, Nikki Yeoh and Robert Mitchell (p.18). If you're anything like me, you'll be enchanted by the idea of a young(er) Yeoh cycling to Ronnie Scott's armed with £3 four nights a week to learn from the best jazz musicians around. You'll also find an insightful interview with the one and only Paul Harris on p.20, a look at Bath Festival Orchestra's Orchestrate project on p.23, a feature about a free online conducting course on p.36, Althea Talbot-Howard's second private teaching column on p.38, and much more besides.
Finally, on p.32, we've tackled a topic that some people may prefer to ignore: burnout. Sometimes, teaching (particularly music teaching), isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and it's important that we recognise that. The writer has asked to remain anonymous; not because she's ashamed, but because society still isn't as accepting as it should be about mental illness, and she doesn't want to take the risk. To her, and any other teacher who is struggling: your experiences matter. She and I hope that the article will help someone feel less alone.
Harriet Clifford, editor
