Page 12 - 2018 June BMR

Thoughts From Larry Livingston

encouraged to watch it on YouTube, and/or attend concerts 7) Do you periodically ask your peers to observe your
where it may be performed. Just playing transcriptions is teaching and make positive but candid evaluations?
not enough. Apropos, I cite an anecdote from The Midwest 8) Do you encourage or allow your students to study a
Clinic a few years ago. Two students outfitted in band secondary instrument?
uniforms, medals hanging off their jackets like badges of 9) Do you have an orchestra in your school? Why not?
military distinction, came into Tower Records and were THOUGHTS BEYOND LINCOLNSHIRE POSY
looking through the classical music bins. One pulled out a Can you teach guitar, mariachi, country fiddle,
record jacket and remarked to his friend, “I did not know composition, improvisation, jazz, strings, rock and roll,
there was an orchestra version of 1812 Overture!” or keyboard? Our students today are musical omnivores,
BIG PICTURE purveyors of styles and genres on a broader and more
I send now a clarion call to consider the following: diverse scale than ever before. Imagine a school in which
1) Are we first, music educators, and second, band more than fifty percent of the students are involved in
directors, or vice versa? music in some form, playing it, composing it, improvising
2) What percentage of the students in your school are it. Now imagine a school whose students are engaged in
doing music? music-making not limited to traditional band literature but
3) Do you teach from the perspective of the sage on the also akin to what might be found on their mp3 players.
stage or the guide on the side? Imagine being the über manager of such an eclectic
4) Do you have a chamber music program? Do students musical enterprise. Imagine the impact on/in the school,
run these ensembles? the band room transformed into a dynamic theater for
5) Are you tracking the ongoing music-making of your musical exploration, the likelihood that graduates will
graduates who are not pursuing careers in music? keep doing music. Fantasy? Heretical? Unrealistic? Perhaps
6) Do you routinely use harmonic/theoretical analysis Yes to points one and three, and for some, dangerously
and musicological research in your score preparation? close to Yes for number 2. Nonetheless, just imagine…

Larry Livingston is a distinguished conductor, educator, and administrator, and a highly respected motivational speaker. The founding Music Director
of the Illinois Chamber Orchestra, Livingston has appeared with the Houston Symphony and in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series.
He has conducted at the Festival de Musique in Evian, France, and has led the Stockholm Wind Orchestra, as well as the Leopoldinum Chamber, Chopin
Academy, and Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestras in Poland. He served as Music Director of the Pan Pacific Festival Orchestras in Sydney, participated
in the International Jazz Festival in Rome, and conducted electro-acoustic ensemble concerts in Tokyo under the auspices of Yamaha International. Mr.
Livingston has led the American Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra, the USC Thornton Chamber and Symphony
Orchestras in Los Angeles, the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble in Berlin, and served on the jury for the renowned Besancon International
Conducting Competition in Besancon, France.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Livingston received the Alumnus of the Year Award from the University of Michigan School of Music in
1988. Mr. Livingston served as Vice President and Music Director of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he was also Conductor of
the Symphony Orchestra and, subsequently, became Dean of the Shepherd School of Music and Elma Schneider Professor at Rice University in Houston.
From 1986 until 2002, Mr. Livingston was Dean of the USC Flora L. Thornton School of Music, where he is Chair of the Conducting Department. The
first music administrator accepted into the Harvard University Executive Education Program, he is a recipient of the Life in the Arts Award from Idyllwild
Arts and an Outstanding Teacher Award from the USC Center for Religion. From 2008 to 2015, Mr. Livingston was Director of Educational Initiatives
for the Guitar Center where he leads the national educational quest, ALL IN.
Larry Livingston was the 2017 TBA Featured Clinician and is an Educational Clinician for the Conn-Selmer Corporation.

Bandmasters Review • June 2018 10 Texas Bandmasters Association