Name: So You Want to Teach your Choir Gospel Music?
Start: 2025-06-07T14:00:00-0500
End: 2025-06-07T15:00:00-0500

Welcome to the APME Memphis 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. The conference schedule will be available in late spring 2025. At that time, you can view the schedule and select the presentations you’d like to attend. If you have any questions, please visit our conference website or contact us at conference@popularmusiceducation.org We look forward to coming together as a community June 4–7, 2025.

Saturday June 7, 2025 2:00pm - 3:00pm CDT

SPAC - Hodges Choral Room

Gospel music has its roots in African American culture and history. As an aural tradition, gospel music’s performance practices and musical characteristics are closely related to blues and jazz. As a form of cultural music, gospel music has played a significant role in the development of many North American popular music genres (i.e., R&B, soul and funk0, although historically, often receives little credit for its contributions. Although gospel music has been slowly making its way into some American and Canadian postsecondary music programs, very few music educators are equipped with the knowledge and skills to teach gospel music in their classrooms. As a result, gospel music continues to have very little presence, if any, in elementary, secondary and postsecondary curriculum. As a Black music educator and gospel music practitioner, I will draw on my 30+ years of experience learning, performing and teaching gospel music to present pedagogical approaches for teaching gospel music in school and community settings. This session will be a modification of similar workshops presented at the PODIUM and OMEA conferences. Through engaging is a simple contemporary gospel song, I will engage workshop participants in rote learning and the development of aural musicianship skill. Participants will also learn and engage in gospel music performance practices such as swaying, clapping and the application of facial expressions and hand gestures to communicate lyrical content. Participants will leave the session with a better understanding of how to authentically teach and perform gospel music.

Speakers

Darren Hamilton

Assistant Professor, Music Education, University of Toronto

Dr. Darren Hamilton is an assistant professor of music education and the founding director of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music Gospel Choir. His work with the gospel choir was featured in three recent CBC Radio documentaries and at the 2024 Toronto Jazz Festival. Dr. Hamilton’s... Read More →

Saturday June 7, 2025 2:00pm - 3:00pm CDT
SPAC - Hodges Choral Room 3800 Central Ave, Memphis, TN 38117

APME Memphis 2025

Darren Hamilton

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