CJMEA
NJSMA
CJMEA
Central Jersey Music Educators Association cjmea. org
Welcome back to what I hope will be a rewarding school year filled with musical growth in your students. This should be an exciting year for CJMEA as we look forward to continuing our fantastic region ensembles, festivals, and honor ensembles. We are also excited to be adding some new opportunities this year to include the first ever middle school honors band and middle school honors orchestra. More information about how your students can become involved will be available on our website soon.
I am also happy to announce that beginning this year, CJMEA will be awarding grants for music-specific professional development to take place in your school district. This is a wonderful opportunity for your district to provide you and your music colleagues PD that is focused on topics that will directly impact your music instruction. We encourage you to work with your administration in filling out an application, which can be found on our website, www. cjmea. org
I’ d like to give thanks to Brian Toth and Kawika Kahalehoe, who have
dedicated themselves for years to the CJMEA executive board as the high school band chair and high school orchestra chair, respectively. Both Brian and Kawika stepped down from their board positions at the end of last year and they will be missed. We welcome to the board Chris Vitale from Westfield High School and Arvin Gopal from East Brunswick High School. Chris will be taking over for Brian as the high school band division chair and Arvin will be taking over for Kawika as the high school orchestra division chair.
All of the divisions are currently solidifying contracts with the conductors for this year’ s region and honors ensembles. Once that is confirmed, we will let everyone know who they are. I am excited at the lineup of fantastic educators and musicians our division chairs are lining up to work with your students.
Please make sure you check the website in the fall for all region audition materials and information. The intermediate instrumental audition materials are posted and the rest will be up as soon as possible. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at awarshafsky @ cjmea. org. Have a great year!
Adam Warshafsky, CJMEA President awarshafsky @ mtsd. us
NJSMA
North Jersey School Music Association njsma. com
I
hope this correspondence finds all of the music teachers in North Jersey rested, well and ready to take on another exciting year of music education. The Region I executive board is looking forward to this year with great anticipation as we continue to serve all of your music programs with the finest music experiences for both you and your students. This year we welcome back Bonnie Hendricks as our wonderful treasurer, and we also welcome back Michael Saias who once again will be our corresponding secretary and publicity chairman. You should be receiving a postcard from him reminding you of our exciting opportunities for your students in Region I..
I am writing this as I am touring 13 states in an RV with my 4 boys, wife and a dog. From St Louis, to New Orleans to Nashville I have been witness to a thriving musical community, and I am reminded of how important what we do really is. I know that I always look forward to starting a new school year, but this year I am bringing an entire new energy to the classroom. I encourage all of you to get out there and find what inspires you, and bring it back to your classroom. That really is our mission here at NJSMA. We want to inspire you with professional development and challenge your students with the best honors ensembles and festivals possible. We do all of this partnered with you, so we all can inspire each other to produce the next generation of Music hopefuls and keep out craft and art form moving forward.
Please take a look at this years NJSMA calendar. It is available at www. NJSMA. com. As has become our tradition, the calendar is full of exciting events for all levels of music education from Elementary all the way through High School. The cornerstones of the year are our honor ensemble auditions, taking place on January 7, 2016 for high school and February 4, 2016 for junior high. For most of us the reason we decided to become music educators was because of outstanding honor ensemble experiences like those we offer in our region, so I encourage everyone to sponsor students so we can pass along the same gifts we were given early in our musical careers. We also welcome and encourage your involvement in NJSMA. The Executive Board cannot do it without your help, expertise and talent. We wel-
TEMPO 78 OCTOBER 2016