National Association for the Study and Performance of African-American Music

Dr. Marsha Kindall-Smith

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Dr. Marsha Kindall-Smith received the 2009-2010 Oberlin College Distinguished Alum Award in Music Education and a brick in her honor on the Walk of Fame at National Association for Music Education headquarters in Reston, VA. She received the 2011 Ambassador Award from the National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music (NASPAAM) and she is a life member. For decades she has consistently preserved the integrity and art of Spirituals, other folk music, and western artistic music of master and living composers through performances as a pianist, vocalist, teacher, choir director, and clinician at schools and churches. Her term as NASPAAM President is from June 2014 through June 2016.

 

webassets/MKSPic.jpgKindall-Smith graduated from Oberlin College, BM (piano and music education), Ohio State University, MA (piano pedagogy and music education), and Boston University, EdD (curriculum and teaching) with a dissertation comparing teacher- directed approaches/assessments in music classrooms with student-centered performance/assessments including process        portfolios, reflections, plus attitudes. As an undergraduate she helped build a school in Nigeria with Operation Crossroads Africa. She studied piano with Leota Palmer, Natalie Hinderas, Emil Danenberg, and Richard Tetley-Kardos. After teaching piano privately to students between the ages of 5 through 76, she taught general music in three Columbus, Ohio schools: one with majority Black students, another with majority Appalachian students, and one for deaf students where she developed curriculum.

 

Dr. Kindall-Smith received the 1997 Massachusetts Lowell Mason Award as an outstanding music educator. In Boston she taught general music to Black students who were bussed from three freedom schools to the Elma Lewis Fine Arts School where John Ross was music director, and Oluntunji, the Nigerian master drummer, was her piano student. She was a general music/ choral teacher at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School (Cambridge), Hobbs Jr. High (Medford), and an adjunct professor for master’s candidates in Lesley University’s Creative Arts and Learning program at satellite campuses in Washington, Vermont, and Massachusetts. In the Natick Public Schools she was a music administration consultant for curriculum, programs, and supervision. In Wellesley Public Schools she developed and taught a keyboard program for general music classes with electronic keyboards and a keynote visualizer, and Orff-Schulwerk with Orff instruments and recorders. Also, she conducted and played piano accompaniments for her large award winning children’s choruses who annually performed challenging choral literature and unique arrangements of folk songs, including Songs in Black History, a choral history she wrote. A Wellesley highlight in her large classroom with 200 Grade 5/6 students was a surprise performance by folksinger Bessie Jones who was in the area. As the K-12 Coordinator of Music/Dance/Drama in the Brookline Public Schools, Kindall-Smith provided equitable programming in the Grades K through 8 schools, created/directed an intergenerational choir with middle school students and senior citizens, provided music teachers for kindergarten classes, arranged concerts and master classes for students by Midori (attended by Yo-Yo-Ma), and dancers from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and hosted drama festivals and events including Jester Hairston, Conan O’Brien, and Mike Wallace. At schools in Japan with the Brookline High School Redwood Singers, she greeted audiences on behalf of Brookline Public Schools, and was a duo piano accompanist for the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, a work she had accompanied in the 11th Grade at Glenville High School in Cleveland with her choral teacher, William Appling. For several years she sang with the Newton Choral Society. The MENC President, Dr. Willie Hill, appointed her to the Music Educators National Conference Minority Task Force (MENC is currently National Association for Music Education, NAfME).

 

Dr. Kindall-Smith received the 2003-2004 Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) where she taught general music courses, created and taught courses in early childhood, arts performance and assessment, and mentoring music teachers, and developed a partnership with Milwaukee Public Schools. Her UWM highlights included organizing a voice master class with William Warfield, arranging for composer Glenn Burleigh to meet her students and practice in her classroom, and co-presenting two concerts with Dr. Jane Bowers to engage the community. During the first concert, African-American Music and Musicians, pianist Kindall-Smith performed Nathaniel Dett’s Juba Dance, compositions were featured by living composers, and the UWM Gospel Choir had its premiere performance. The second concert was Hispanic Music and Musicians with Milwaukee performers from Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico. Dr. Kindall-Smith sang with the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus and the Bel Canto Choir. Also, she was the Director of Senior Singers at Luther Manor Nursing Home, sponsored by Bel Canto Choir. In 2013 she presented an interactive workshop sponsored by Wisconsin United Methodist Church Foundation and Kenwood Methodist Foundation, Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit: Singing Spirituals in Worship. It was attended by people from 21 traditional and multicultural churches and others who did not specify a church; all participants received a free songbook and CD. In Massachusetts she served on the Board of Directors and was appointed Vice-President of the state association of NAfME. Likewise, she served on the Board of Directors and was elected Vice-President, Southeast District of the Wisconsin NAfME association. In Massachusetts she was a member of the Education Committee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and helped develop the city-wide celebration of Roland Hayes.  In Wisconsin she served on the Board of Directors of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO), was a member of the education and community engagement committee, and traveled to Carnegie Hall for one of the MSO concerts.

 

Dr. Kindall-Smith was a music education clinician at numerous local/state/national conferences, plus international conferences in Honolulu, Hong Kong, Sydney, New York City, and Seattle. Highlights of her performances as a choral member occurred with The Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City and at cathedrals in Austria. Among her publications are What a Difference in 3 Years! Risking Social Justice Content in Required Undergraduate Music Education Curricula, Journal of Music Teacher Education (JMTE) (2013, April), #35 of 50 most-read JMTE articles during March 2014; four articles in Music Educators Journal (MEJ) including Revitalization in an Urban Setting (2004, November) which appeared on a monthly updated list of most cited MEJ articles for several months in 2012/2013, Is There Musical Meaning in the Musical? (2010, March), and Godliness Is Next to Nothing in a 1970 Special Report on Urban Education, 56(5). Other publications include: A Half-Baked Cake/Inedible Pudding in Music Teacher Education in National Journal of Urban Education and Practice (2008), I Plant My Feet on Higher Ground: Music Teacher Education for Urban Schools in  Teaching Music in the Urban Classroom, V2, (2006), On My Journey: Minority Teachers and Teaching Beyond  the  Curriculum  in Mountain  Lake  Reader  (2004),  and Challenging Exclusionary Paradigms in the Traditional Musical Canon with Constance McKoy and Susan Mills in International Journal of Music Education (2011, November), #45 of 50 most read articles during July 2014.

 

In addition to NASPAAM, NAfME, & WMEA, Dr. Kindall-Smith belongs to Society for Music Teacher Education, College Music Society, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc.


Preserving, Promoting, and Advancing the Tradition of African-American Music.