Erin Zaffini
Dr. Erin Zaffini is the Director of Teacher Education for Longy School of Music’s online and on-campus Master of Music Education degrees, online Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies, and Teacher Continuing Education. She is also a faculty member of Carnegie Hall’s Music Educators Workshop and has been a guest workshop clinician for Music ConstructED. As a curriculum specialist in teaching music to students through the lens of Universal Design for Learning and the areas of access, equity, and inclusion in music education, Erin is an active clinician and educational consultant for school districts and fine and performing arts departments around the world. She has served as the Eastern Division Representative for NAfME’s General Music Council and as the Collegiate Coordinator, General Music Chair, and Mentor Program Coordinator for the New Hampshire Music Educators Association. In addition, she sits on the Advisory Committee for the Music Educators Journal. Erin is a proud partner and collaborator with the United Nations through her work at Longy School of Music as well as her role on Zero Project’s international Inclusive Arts Council. Erin is an instructional coach for music educators and administrators and is the project leader for instituting national music educator mentor training within the Society for Music Teacher Education and the National Association for Music Education. She has developed and enacted numerous music educator mentoring and induction programs and is currently the Director of the New Arts Teacher Mentoring Network for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She is the recipient of the Keene State College Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Performance Awards. She has recently published articles in General Music Today, Music Educators Journal, Qualitative Research in Music Education, and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. During her free time, Erin enjoys exploring the great outdoors with her husband (Matt) and two sons (Matty and Aiden), running, biking, and watching nostalgic movies from the 1980s and 1990s.
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eBooks by Erin Zaffini
Posts by Erin Zaffini
Musicast Episode 5: Young Band Directors Panel- Finding and Remembering Your “Why”
\A panel of high school band directors who have been teaching for 6 years or less come together to discuss the good, the bad, and the inspirational parts of being a band director. The discussion includes topics about leadership, COVID era teaching, and finding and remembering why they became music teachers. This episode will feed your soul! [...]
The Essential Work of the Arts
As a young educator, I was always tasked with the [...]
Musicast Episode 4: Kirsten C. Kunkle – Passionate Pioneering
Soprano Kirsten C. Kunkle has been hailed as an outstanding singing actress with a voice that has been described as beautiful, ethereal, powerful, fiery, and bewitching. he attended Bowling Green State University and the University of Salzburg for her undergraduate studies, majoring in voice performance with minors in Italian and German. Her graduate degrees are in voice performance from the University of Michigan. A voting member of the Muscogee Nation, Dr. Kunkle commissioned and premiered sixteen original compositions, including one of her own, based upon the poetry of her ancestor and highly-acclaimed poet of the Native American Muscogee Nation, Alex Posey. [...]
Research to Practice: Using Data for More than Just Grades
I used to think that research was complicated and couldn’t help me in my classroom. I used to see the Music Educators Journal arrive in my mailbox, flip through, sigh, think to myself – “If I only had time….,” and then add the issue to a growing pile on my dining room table. [...]
Musicast Episode 3: Lucky Chops – Streets & Stage: Funkifying Music Education
Lucky Chops has been unleashing high-energy brassy funk on the world since forming in NYC in 2006. The intensity of the band’s energy is fueled by their desire to share the healing and inspirational power of music with others. That power has resonated with audiences around the globe, giving the band hundreds of millions of views on their online videos and leading to live performances in more than twenty five countries. Lucky Chops maintains a busy schedule touring across several continents. [...]
Musicast Episode 2: Wanda Vasquez Garcia – Equity and Expectancy
Wanda is currently the general music teacher at the Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer in Lafayette, Colorado, and the children and youth choir director at First Congregational Church of Greeley, Colorado. As a K-5 music educator, she believes music is a very effective way to learn about cultures. [...]