CMP Committee Members

Miriam teaches music at Atwater Elementary School in Shorewood, WI, where she works with students in grades K-6. Previous to this role, she has many years’ experience at the middle school level. CMP has been a significant influence in her teaching for over twenty years. Her interests in non-Western musical traditions led her to study drumming and vocal music at the Dagbe Cultural Institute in Ghana, West Africa, with three intensive residential stays since 2010. Ms. Altman presents regularly at state and regional conferences, as well as guest conducts honor ensembles, such  as the 2020 Wisconsin Choral Directors Association All-State Children’s Choir. Her students have been invited to perform at a number of exciting venues, most recently the 2018 Wisconsin Music Educators’ Association State Conference.Special Interests within CMP:

• CMP and Non-Western Music – What makes an arrangement “authentic”? Why does authenticity matter? How can educators teach music and culture in such a way that respects the traditions it originates from?
• Choosing Quality Repertoire – The music we choose implicitly carries a message of value to our students, parents, colleagues, and administrators. How can we find great music of all styles, cultures, and time periods, which is also appealing to our students and worth our time?
• Student-Centered Pedagogy – How can we create more opportunities for students to experiment, lead, take risks, think, and engage within the ensemble setting? Just as importantly, how can we do this in such a way that adds to ensemble quality and excellence?
• CMP and Popular Music Styles – How can we foster student involvement in musical pursuits outside of the traditional band, orchestra, and choral ensembles? What are the best ways to help foster great musicianship skills in our kids who play and sing in rock/pop styles?

Janet Revell Barrett has been a fan of CMP for years and is honored to join the committee. She began her career teaching general and choral music in Iowa City and Madison, followed by faculty positions in music teacher education at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has taught courses in in philosophy, curriculum, research methods, music teacher education, and interdisciplinary approaches to the music curriculum. Her recent publications include the revised edition of Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching: Growth, Inquiry, Agency with Mark Robin Campbell and Linda Thompson (Routledge, 2021) and the forthcoming Seeking Connections: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Music Teaching and Learning (Oxford University Press). Dr. Barrett is the Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Endowed Chair Emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and current editor of the Bulletin for the Council of Research in Music Education. She lives in Champaign, IL surrounded by her family and enjoying every moment as Nana to four lively grandchildren. My favorite topics include music teachers’ curriculum making, thinking about the lasting impact of educational experiences, and creating meaningful connections between music and other curricular areas such as art, poetry, and history.

Karen Bruno is primarily a choral educator who has also taught general music, collegiate music education classes, and a cat to fetch. She is currently a teacher-conductor within, and artistic director of the Lawrence Community Girl Choir program and the director of the Lawrence Community Music School in Appleton, WI. Karen holds leadership positions at the state and national level of the American Choral Directors Association and works in the areas of repertoire, advocacy and collaboration, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is also active within the National Guild for Community Arts Education and the National Association for Music Education. She holds degrees from Smith College and Boston University but is an entirely self-taught vegetarian culinary artist. Special Interests within CMP:

• Finding (and using, and “selling” to students) quality choral music
• Aesthetic education (inquiry-based)
• The talent myth and its implications in public school settings
• Advocating the use of CMP – an administrator’s view

Paul Gregg has been a member of the CMP Committee since 2018. He is the director of Choirs at McFarland High School where he conducts three curricular choirs and the McFarland BlueNotes. He also serves as the Producer and Music Director of the annual Musical, Manager of the new McFarland PAC, and sings with the Madison Choral Project. He earned a Master’s degree from the University of Iowa in Choral Conducting, and Bachelor degrees in Choral Music and French from UW Stevens Point.  He has been a guest clinician, a WSMA Master Adjudicator for festivals, and has served on various committees and projects with WMEA, WSMA, and WCDA. He previously taught for twelve years at Luxemburg-Casco HS, adjunct voice for two years at UW Green Bay, and for six years at O’Keeffe Middle School in Madison. Paul lives in McFarland with his wife and three children.  Special CMP Interests:

• Aspects of sociology, humanity, and justice in programming
• Solid score analysis and connections to the classroom
• “Embracing the Fringe” – Trauma-informed teaching and CMP
• Advocating for a National CMP Program

Margaret Jenks has been teaching for twenty years at a variety of different schools and grade levels. She currently conducts elementary and middle school choirs for the Madison Youth Choirs and teaches K-5 in the Madison Metropolitan School District. She has served as a clinician and speaker at a number of state and regional conferences–especially in areas of repertoire selection and the changing boys’ voice. She has actively pursued CMP thinking and teaching since her college days at Lawrence University, where Rick Bjella was a major influence on her decision to become a music educator. Recent CMP highlights include leading workshops with teachers from across Asia in Korea and Hong Kong, as well as collaborating with colleagues from Illinois as they begin a statewide CMP initiative. Margaret has been a CMP committee member since 2000 and currently is past-chair of the CMP committee. If she suddenly were forced to choose another career, her vegetarian cooking-without-a-recipe skills are pretty sharp and her two sons, 8 and 11, already have restaurant names chosen.Special Interests within CMP:
I am genuinely interested in talking about pretty much any area of music or pedagogy, but here are a few recent favorites:

• Outcome Writing–why writing outcomes matters, writing affective outcomes, CMP outcomes and the Common Core Standards
• Repertoire Selection and CMP for the younger classes/choirs (MS-Early HS and younger)
• Issues with teaching creativity, fostering curiosity and helping communities see the relevance of a quality music education

Therese Josephson teaches middle school orchestra at Badger Ridge Middle School in Verona, WI. Ms. Josephson holds a Masters Degree in Educational Media Design and Technology from Full Sail University, and Bachelors Degrees in Music Education and Mathematics from Lawrence University. In addition to teaching full-time, Ms. Josephson is an active clinician and teacher mentor. Special interests within CMP:

• CMP for beginning instrumentalists
• Trauma informed teaching and CMP

Randal Swiggum currently serves as Artistic Director of the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra and is a conductor in the Madison Youth Choirs. He is also Education Conductor for the award-winning Elgin Symphony Orchestra, creating and conducting a dozen youth and family concerts each season. Under his tenure, the EYSO has more than tripled in size, drawing students from a wide geographical range of over sixty communities in Illinois and Wisconsin, with five orchestras, a brass choir, a vibrant chamber music program and performances at Ravinia, on NPR’s From the Top, and with superstars Midori and Yo Yo Ma, as well as headlining the Aberdeen International Festival in Scotland. A frequent guest conductor of orchestral and choral festivals, he recently conducted the Scottish National Youth Symphony in Glasgow, the APAC Festival Orchestra in Seoul, Korea, the first ever Pennsylvania ACDA/PMEA All-State Junior High Choir, the New York City InterSchool Festival, the Singapore American Schools Music Festival, the MENC All-Northwest Honor Choir in Portland, and American Mennonite Schools Orchestra Festival, the Northern Arizona Honors Orchestra, and both the Wisconsin Middle Level Honors Choir and Orchestra. In recent seasons, he conducted both the Illinois and Georgia All-State Orchestras.A frequent presenter at NAfME, ASTA, and ACDA conferences, he has addressed the Pennsylvania MENC on “The Art of Rehearsing,” as well as the Maryland NAfME, the ACDA North Central Division in Des Moines and Eastern Division in Hartford, CT, the Texas Orchestra Directors Association, and national conventions of the NAfME in Phoenix and Kansas City. He has conducted successful performance tours to Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Scotland, and throughout the U.S. His choirs performed throughout Italy under the auspices of UNESCO, in Brazil as guests of the city of Rio de Janeiro and Intercultura Brasil, and with the Icelandic National Symphony in Reykjavik under the direction of Lukas Foss. He conducted the University of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra in Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Budapest, and Vienna.Swiggum is currently a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at UW-Madison and chair of CMP.

Richard Tengowski is a music teacher for the School District of Kohler in Kohler, Wisconsin. He received his B.M. in Music Education from St. Norbert College and his M.M. from Northwestern University.  He teaches middle and high school concert bands, jazz ensemble, pep band, drumline and secondary general music. He is the current NAfME North Division President-Elect (2020-21), Past-President of the Wisconsin Music Educators Association, member of the Wisconsin CMP Project and is on the WMEA leadership team developing state music standards for Wisconsin. Mr. Tengowski is a Herb Kohl Educational Fellowship Award Recipient, a School District of Kohler Teacher of the Year and was recently inducted into the Wisconsin Bandmaster Association.  Mr. Tengowski is an active clinician, conductor, master adjudicator, speaker and freelance performer. He is married to wife Beth Ellen and has four sons, Ryan, John, Benjamin and Gregory – all musicians.

Cornelia Watkins happily joined the CMP committee in 2005 when she still lived in Houston, TX, where she freelanced and taught preparatory cello and pedagogy at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. In 2018, no longer resist the powerful centripetal force of Wisconsin, she moved to Madison with her husband, cellist Max Dyer.  She is now a lecturer of pedagogy at Northwestern University, and plays and teaches privately in the Madison area. Corky gives lectures at conferences around the country, and is the author of several articles and two books: Rosindust: Teaching Learning and Life from a Cellist’s Perspective and From the Stage to the Studio: How Fine Musicians Become Great Teachers.Special Interests within CMP:

• Helping teachers discover how applicable and valuable CMP is in one-on-one lessons.
• Exploring the synergy between knowledge, technique, and expression, and helping students understand the connection.
• Student-centered approaches musical excellence, such as discovering why good technique is good technique or exploring musical expression through personal experiences, rather than just doing what is expected.
• Teaching technique by approaching it through the affect.
• Understanding the brain, the ability to focus, the value of trust, the significance of expectations, and the way these elements work together in the learning process.