David Willoughby
I am very pleased to announce the appointment of David Woods as Program Chair for the 31st Annual Meeting to be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 13-16, 1988. David is Director of the School of Music at the University of Arizona and is eminently qualified to organize an outstanding program. It will prove to be a musically diverse program, reflective of the cultural mix of New Mexico and the Southwest.
To those who know Santa Fe, I know you will agree that this meeting will be held in one of the most interesting and exciting environments available for a CMS meeting. It will have to be one of those "must attend" meetings.
From the Spring Board Meeting—CMS continues to revamp its policy and structure to make its operations more efficient, more professional, and more legal! We now, in all facets of our organization, comply with current corporate and tax laws relating to not-for-profit, educational and charitable organizations.
CMS has become associated with two more professional organizations devoted to the betterment of our profession in music and in higher education. In addition to the International Society for Music Education, we now support and are involved with the Foundation for the Advancement of Education in Music, a new alliance of the music teaching profession and the music industry, and have become a "Constituent Organization" of the American Council on Education.
A national invitational Conference on College Music and the Community will take place in the Summer of 1988. Planning is in the formative stages, but the Conference will initiate Phase II of the Music in General Studies Program. Phase II will set in motion formats for 1) exploring the role of music faculty in the social., cultural, and artistic life of the communities that they serve and 2) encouraging innovative ways of improving college-community alliances and interaction.
A Performance Survey developed by Lois Svard, Board Member for Performance, revealed interesting information, particularly the extent to which our music units are served by part time performance teachers. I wonder to what extent these teachers are valued, i.e., recognized and rewarded, as compared with full time teachers. Lois will comment on the Survey in the May edition of the Newsletter.
This Board meeting was my first to moderate as President of the Society. I was most impressed with the willingness of Board Members to ask probing questions about their respective disciplines, their relationships among the music disciplines, and appropriate ways in which CMS and their disciplines should interact. It was a marvelous time of self-examination that was open-ended and will be continued in appropriate dialogues with the membership at future Annual Meetings.
Comment—CMS has been giving considerable attention to a global, multicultural repertoire through its MGS Program and through its regional music and culture tracks at Annual Meetings. I cannot agree with a college professor who recently advised that "enough is enough" and that CMS should concentrate on topics "related to scholarship and instructional integrity."
We place strong emphasis on multicultural diversity because we feel it is indispensable to the complete education of ourselves and our students. It is not a luxury but a necessity that our music curricula reflect cultures and traditions that are not derived from the high culture of western Europe. Many potential undergraduate students, from ethnic groups and also the mainstream population, have little or no relationship to the western European art/concert music tradition; their values lie in vernacular music and should not be ignored.
In the United States, the number of minority undergraduate students will increase dramatically in the next few decades and is expected to attain a ratio of one in three by the year 2000. It seems to me that if we respond to the changing demographics and subsequent, related needs by broadening the curricula, we will attract students from minority groups in increasing numbers as both majors and non-majors. We will attract these students if we acknowledge the value of their musics in our curricula and, thus, affirm their value as human beings and the value of their culture.
In expanding our musical outlook, we grow as musicians and as individuals—and perhaps, also, we will have students in our classes.