Arts & Culture

Hit Up UK Modern Band Workshop for a New Way of Teaching Music

photo of Modern Band participants in 2018 in the Band Room at Fine Arts Building
Modern Band has been a popular workshop for music educators and arts administrators in and around Kentucky.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 2, 2020) The Modern Band Workshop is coming back to University of Kentucky this March. Utilizing popular music as its central canon, Modern Band teaches students to perform the music they know and love and to compose and improvise.

This workshop is beneficial and open to music teachers, art administrators, music therapists, superintendents, principals, community music leaders and music students. The workshop, presented by the University of Kentucky School of Music, will run March 21-22.

"I see Modern Band as a way to complement our current K–12 music education system, not replace it," said UK Assistant Professor of Music Education Martina Vasil, organizer of the workshop. "By bringing in music that students prefer and using informal pedagogy, I believe that we can get more students involved in school music programs."

Modern Band is a new kind of school music program that has been adopted in three of the four largest school systems across the nation, serving 2.2 million school age students. The program was created by Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit organization that partners with public school districts to provide classrooms with musical instruments and resources.

Participants can attend the Modern Band Workshop March 21-22, located in the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library, Room 212. The workshop costs $150 with a $75 deposit required to reserve a spot. The deadline to register is March 7. Register online at: https://finearts.uky.edu/music/education/summer-training/registration.

The School of Music at the UK College of Fine Arts has garnered a national reputation for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as music education, music therapy, composition, and theory and music history.

 

As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.   

In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.