Category Archives: Uncategorized

Teacher of the Year Voting

It’s time to vote for the MASTA Teacher of the Year.  In 2014, our organization began alternating this award between studio teachers and classroom teachers each year, and this is the year to award a studio teacher.  Please read about each candidate below, and then cast your vote by following this link: Teacher of the

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Music Education & Technology Podcast with Dan Scott

Our MASTA President-Elect, Dan Scott, was recently interviewed for the Music Education & Technology Podcast website! Here is a link to the podcast article: https://metpodcast.wordpress.com/2017/11/23/episode-12-dan-scott-orchestra-teacher-in-jenison-michigan/ Here is a direct link to the actual podcast: https://ia601504.us.archive.org/33/items/METPodcast/MetPodcast012.m4a

2018 MASTA Chamber Music Festival

Registration is now open for the 2018 MASTA Chamber Music Festival, which will be held on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Monday February 26, 2018. Our guest artists will be the Ambassador String Quartet:  Kimberly Kaloyanides Kennedy, violin – Associate Concertmaster, Detroit Symphony Orchestra Sunmi Chang, violin — faculty at

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Hurricane Relief Project

The Michigan American String Teachers Association joined with Luck’s Music Library this past week to support orchestra programs affected by Hurricane Harvey. The Hurricane Harvey School Orchestra Music Fund was created by Luck’s Music Library to help replace the music libraries of public schools in Houston, several of which were entirely lost to the storm’s flooding. In

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MASTA Professional Development Grants

My MASTA Grant 2017: OSU String Teacher Workshop (Adventures in Buckeye-land) by Joe Harmsen Earlier this summer, I applied for and received a MASTA Professional Development Grant which I used to help cover some of the costs of the 2017 Ohio State University String Teacher Workshop. During the workshop, I attended sessions on a large

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An Interview with Robert Ritsema

Robert Ritsema is a Professor Emeritus of Music at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he taught from 1967 to 2000. His first teaching position was in the Portage, Michigan schools; while there, he was also a member of the Kalamazoo Symphony. He was also the director of the Hope College Orchestra and the Hope

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