The Beth and Kelly Show: Music Teaching (and Life)

ATX educator and entrepreneur Estela Aragon is the founder and CEO of two great companies for trumpet learners: MusicFit Academy and Trumpet Headquarters. We dig into the concept of folks like us (music educators with degrees in music ed and/ or music performance) actually making a living as an entrepreneur. Actually making life happen and THRIVING outside of the confines of the classroom walls WHILE STILL SERVING OUR GREATER MISSION of furthering and bettering the structures of what we do — helping others realize their potential in the arts (and specifically music).

We are joined by best-selling author Lesley Moffat for some real talk about the business of choosing to take back our own health and well-being as human beings that happen to be educators for a career during this unprecedented time; so that the health and well-being of our music-learning communities and all the people in them can ALSO flourish!

Dr. LaSaundra Booth (professional cellist, professional conductor, music educator, professor, and founder of the Wake Forest Community Youth Orchestra) tells us her story of building orchestras for youth despite roadblocks at every corner. She charges us with an important to-do list for making our learning space relevant and culturally responsive.

On this rare show without a special guest, we get autobiographical in our first #metoo discussion. We open up with the story of how two young tattooed music teacher colleagues (us) who decided to create a music department website that had our new professional headshots on the teacher page were characterized in feedback from the public. You’ll want to listen if you are interested in the sordid details. This is an important and uncomfortable topic to get into. Thanks to our listeners for “going there” with us!

We are joined by music educator and performer extraordinaire Annie Savage, and one of Nashville’s most in-demand pro mandolin players Tristan Scroggins (who also does a lot of music teaching ). We open up about deliberately choosing a sober lifestyle in our personal lives and our music teaching and professional performing careers. We are honest about our stories, and what brought us to realize we needed to make a change. And, we’re upfront about about what life is like now.

We are joined by GRAMMY Award winning music educator and leader Jared Cassedy, the Director of Performing Arts for the Lexington, Massachusetts School District. We talk candidly about why it seems so god-awful hard to do our jobs in this specific moment in time, coming out of the most unprecedented year in education’s history and feeling like we have to revive all the things we used to do pre-Covid (even though some of the stuff we used to do pre-Covid was actually kinda harmful). We talk about strategies for making it through to the other side too — spoiler alert: it’s all about remembering we and our students are human.

Are the all-consuming ways we approach teaching music in high school sustainable? Chandra decided to address this problem head-on.

Adam shares about his new course "Black American Music" for non-musician high schoolers. Check out this honest discussion about an important curriculum.

The Beth and Kelly Show Season Two Premiere! We are joined by members of the Washington Music Educators Association board of directors to talk about our return to the classroom and our State’s updated guidance document. Super Informative, and GREAT perspectives are shared!

It's our Season One Finale and we're joined by former students Maia Nelson, Tate Linden, Sean MacCarthy-Grant, and Mariah Roberson. In conjunction with the NAfME Council for Jazz Education, we talk openly and honestly about the effects our "jazz is for everybody" program had on their creative lives. Extra bonus as we're joined at the end by listeners David Kauffman and Scott Brown.