Online Summer Seminars 2024

The Kodály Music Institute proudly offers a diverse array of online courses with world-renowned instructors.

  • Prices for each seminar:
    1 Credit: $500
    22.5 PDPs: $350

    Please note:

    • If you pay with PayPal, the price includes a 3.9% convenience fee.

    • The $100 deposit is non-refundable.

    • If paying with a purchase order, please contact Susie Petrov by emailing susiepetrov@gmail.com.

    • If paying with a check, please make it payable to Kodály Music Institute and mail it to: Kodály Music Institute, Inc., 1 Washington Mall #1167, Boston, MA 02108


Black Music Aesthetics

Where to Find Them, What to Listen For, How to Bring Them to the K-12 Classroom

Paul Hunt
  • Tuition and Fees:

    • 1 Credit: $500

    • 22.5 PDPs: $350

  • KMI 516

  • Dates and Times: July 8-12, 2024, 2-5 p.m. EDT

  • Instructors: Paul Hunt and Megan Ankuda

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Indiana University Professor Emerita Portia Maultsby defined three distinct areas of Black aesthetics in music: Sound quality, mechanics and delivery, and style of delivery. In this workshop we will listen to, identify, and describe these Black musical traits that are ubiquitous across styles, genres and historical periods. We will also connect them to our classroom practice with hands-on pedagogical activities that center Maultsby’s defined qualities of Black music. As a participant, you will have the opportunity to develop new materials and applications for your current classroom.

We recommend the following text: Burnim, M. V, & Maultsby, P. K. (2015). African American music: an introduction (2nd edition). New York: Routledge.

  • Paul Hunt is an Associate Instructor and PhD student in music education at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where his research focuses on Black American music and Afropessimism in music education. Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Butler University, with an emphasis in Trumpet Performance and a concentration in Jazz Studies, as well as a Master of Science in Music Education from Indiana University. Before pursuing doctoral work in music education, Paul was a middle school band director and professional trumpeter in Indianapolis, Indiana.

  • Megan Ankuda is a PhD Candidate in Music Education at Indiana University and adjunct instructor at DePauw University. She taught general music and chorus for eleven years, most notably in the Kodály programs in Cambridge, Massachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut Public Schools. As an elementary choral conductor, Ms. Ankuda has directed the Early Bird Singers in Cambridge, MA, and the Elementary Honors Choir in the Yale Music in Schools Initiative. She is a past president of the Boston Area Kodály Educators, holds a degree in music education from the Boston Conservatory, and Kodály certification from Holy Names University.


Musician of the Month Project

Rick Saunders
  • Tuition and Fees:

    • 1 Credit: $500

    • 22.5 PDPs: $350

  • KMI 518

  • Dates and Times: July 15-19, 2024, 2-5 p.m. EDT

  • Instructors: Adam McLean and Richard Saunders

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Do you want your classroom listening examples to better reflect the diversity of our world? Are you ready to challenge the prevailing Euro-centric bias in most music curricula? Participants in this class will learn how to design and implement a sequential, culturally responsive listening curriculum that is relevant to your students using the Musician of the Month model. Course content will also include responsible research practices for unit planning, effective listening activities for all ages, connecting musical elements to listening examples, and providing cultural/historical context in the classroom. In addition, the materials that participants create during the course may be included in the open-source, online resource that music educators worldwide are building together at www.musicianofthemonthproject.com. We hope you will join the project!

  • Adam McLean has 16 years of experience teaching music, from PreK through graduate school. Adam holds degrees from The Boston Conservatory and Skidmore College. He earned a Kodály Music Teaching Certificate (Level III) from the Kodály Music Institute and a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design from the University of Maine. Adam has taught general music in the Boston Public Schools, the Troy (NY) City Schools, the Cambridge (MA) Public Schools, and the Somerville (MA) Public Schools. An adjunct instructor in music education for the College of the Atlantic, the Kodály Music Institute and Rhode Island College, Adam also presents regularly at local, state, and national music education symposia and has been published in several print and online journals. Adam is a Past President of Boston Area Kodály Educators and is the Curriculum Director for the Musician of the Month Project. Adam currently works as an instructional designer. A professional percussionist and composer, he is also a proud father of two children (ages 13 and 10).

  • Rick Saunders is the Coordinator for Fine, Applied, and Performing Arts for the Watertown Public Schools. Rick has his Master's Degree in Music Education from UMass Lowell with a concentration in Multicultural Music. Rick is also a jazz pianist and multi-instrumentalist who has studied Kodály Pedagogy with Charlyn Bethel and Pamela Wood.


Playing and Teaching Ukulele in a Kodály-Inspired Classroom

  • Tuition and Fees:

    • 1 Credit: $500

    • 22.5 PDPs: $350

  • KMI 515

  • Dates and Times: July 8-12, 2024, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. EDT

  • Instructor: David Piper

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Ukulele is a powerful teacher tool in the music classroom! It allows teachers to move and interact during circle games, lend support to emerging singers, and strum modern tunes. Most teachers can read a few chord diagrams on their own, but are not sure what to do next. This class will explore all the different ways to use the instrument.

Participants will explore melodic playing, organize their knowledge of “open chord’ keys, begin playing barre chords, use a capo, and restring the uke to find the beautiful possibilities of low-G tuning! The focus of the class will be on helping teachers accompany classes better. But we will also stop along the way for sidebars about teaching a ukulele unit to students, put the ukulele in a cultural and historic context, talk about the many “ukulele-adjacent” instruments and genres around the world, and explore how the instrument can be a bridge to guitar and songwriting concepts. There is no better time to improve your ukulele playing than this summer!

  • David Piper is the K-5 general music teacher at the Willard School in Concord, MA. He is a graduate of UMass Amherst (BA Music, English), Berklee College of Music (Music Production and Engineering), and Gordon College (MA Music Ed). He teaches a summer course in ukulele for the Kodály Music Institute in Boston, MA, where he also received his Kodály Teaching certification. He also holds certifications in Orff level 1, First Steps in Music, and Music Together. He has recorded over 100 Spanish-language folk songs for “Canta Y Baila Conmigo” and plays electric bass in the surf rock band “Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters.”


Taste of Kodály

Introduction to Kodály Teaching

  • Tuition and Fees:

    • 1 Credit: $500

    • 22.5 PDPs: $350

  • KMI TOK

  • Dates and Times: July 15-19, 2024, 9-12 a.m. EDT

  • Instructors: Kelly Graeber & John Martha-Reynolds

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In this introductory course, participants will have some basic experiences within the full range of Kodály Level Training.  Participants will delve into the Kodály philosophy- pedagogy, musicianship, conducting, and materials in order to continue your own lifelong training as a musician as well as instilling a love of music in your students. You will come away with many games, songs, activities and inspiration from watching the Kodály philosophy in action.

  • Kelly Graeber is a music educator and soprano. Growing up in Quincy, MA, Ms. Graeber began her music career studying piano, singing in school choirs and playing clarinet in the North Quincy High School band. In 1993 she was accepted into the Handel & Haydn Society Vocal Arts Program, an opportunity that would change her path forever. Voice lessons, theory/ ear training and master classes offered there readied her for college study in music.

    In 2001, Ms. Graeber completed a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance summa cum laude from the University of Southern Maine where she sang the role of Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. While living in Maine, she was a soloist with the Portland Symphony and the Portland Community Chorale.

    Continuing her education at the University of Illinois, Ms. Graeber studied voice with the acclaimed soprano Cynthia Haymon. In 2006, she completed a Master of Music in Music Education at The Boston Conservatory and began teaching public school. Ms. Graeber studied Orff-Schulwerk music education at Boston University. In 2009, she visited Budapest on a pedagogy tour to observe music teaching and learning in Hungarian schools that follow the method of Zoltán Kodály. Inspired by the visit, she completed a three-year Certificate program in Kodály teaching with distinction from the Kodály Music Institute in 2014.

    Ms. Graeber teaches elementary school general music and chorus at the Morse School in Cambridge, MA. In an era where districts are cutting funding to music, she has expanded the music program, developing a Kodály based program based on frequent music instruction. Students at the Morse School have music classes 3 to 4 times per week. For the past 12 years she has been cantor and choir director at Saint Mary Church in West Quincy.

    Equally comfortable on the opera and musical theatre stage, Ms. Graeber sang the roles of Susanna in Marriage of Figaro with Opera by the Bay and Ms. Silverpeal in The Impressario with Mass Theatrica as well as Grace in Annie and Liesl in The Sound of Music with the Cohasset Dramatic Club.

    Ms. Graeber lives with her husband and three children in Quincy. When not singing or planning lessons, she enjoys chasing them around, though admittedly looks forward to singing lullabies each night as they drift off to sleep.

  • John Martha-Reynolds, music teacher for the Cambridge Public Schools, piloted a Kodály inspired program at the Tobin Montessori School in the summer of 2013. Since its implementation, John has created a comprehensive Kodály program that focuses on student engagement and draws from students’ backgrounds to inform repertoire selection and curriculum development. He currently teaches K-2 general music. In addition to his responsibilities in Cambridge, John conducts two ensembles with the Boston Children’s Chorus.

    John is an active educator, clinician and performer: As an educator, he has taught in various public schools, after-school music institutions, children’s choruses, and several community center teen leadership programs. As a clinician, John has presented at the state and national level for ACDA, Chorus America, NAfME, and OAKE. 

    John holds a Master’s degree in Vocal Performance from New England Conservatory and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Baldwin Wallace University, formerly Baldwin-Wallace College, Conservatory of Music. Recently, John returned to his undergraduate alma mater to complete all three levels of Orff-Schulwerk certification. In addition, he is a Kodály certified educator, having completed all three levels of Kodály certification at the Kodály Music Institute.