For those of you that are new to GBS, my name is Robert Kennedy and I am the Certified Kodaly Music Educator here at the Gillen Brewer School. During the upcoming open school night, my time with you will be limited to a quick hello to simply put the name with the face so I wanted to take some time here to let you know about myself.
Music has always been a part of my life. I was fortunate enough to have supportive parents and amazing music educators throughout my youth. It started with piano lessons during my formative years, the French Horn in middle school, the bass guitar in high school and then onto other instruments that have been discovered since then such as: guitar, ukulele, accordion, banjo, drums and harmonica. I ended up sharing this love of music and instruments with the children of The Parkside School when I became a substitute teacher in the early 90’s. During my breaks, I would schedule music sessions with the classes, promoting singing and dancing along to the music I remembered hearing as a child. This ended up being the seed of their music program - which was the first of its kind to combine Music Therapy with Music Education. During my employment at Parkside, I became certified as a Kodaly Music Educator at NYU while being mentored at work by one of my NYU music professors, as well as the staff of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Clinic. Once again, I was fortunate to be surrounded by inspirational music educators. Shortly thereafter, I was given the reigns to be the music teacher and eventually became the head of The Parkside School Arts Department. During my time at Parkside, two teachers decided to start their own school (The Gillen Brewer School) and asked me to come and teach music on my day off. This program grew and grew and I decided to work here exclusively in 2005 and have been here ever since. To learn about the Kodaly Method: https://www.oake.org/about-us/the-kodaly-concept/ To learn about Music Therapy or Nordoff-Robbins: https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/nordoff/therapy Comments are closed.
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September 2018
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