Today's Featured Biography

 
Lois Veenhoven Guderian

Lois Veenhoven Guderian, PhD Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; Master in Music Education, Western Michigan University; Bachelor of Music degrees from Hope College in Piano Performance and Vocal Music Education, Major in Voice.
Current: full time Music Education Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Superior where Lois coordinates the music education degree programs and is a professor of music education and integrated music education. Lois enjoys a multifaceted career as a music educator, composer, author, choral conductor, performer, researcher, clinician, arts program designer and implementer for schools and communities, and a designer/educator of online music courses for higher education. Lois is an educator of all ages of children, youth and adults, and was active as a choral, general and instrumental music educator in Chicago area public and private schools and colleges/universities for more than 25 years. On invitation, in past and present roles, Lois has served the National Association for Music Education in a number of capacities: author, composer, online mentor in choral music and music composition, clinician and national adjudicator in composition. Lois has served on the board for various Illinois State and Chicago area arts organizations including Outreach Chair and Vice President for the Chicago Composers Forum, Illinois State Music Educators Voice and Outreach Chair, and as Research Chair (2012-2016) and clinician for the Wisconsin Music Educators Association. Awards and recognition for her work in music education include the Music Educators Fellowship (2000); Music Educators PhD Fellowship (2001-2004); and Emily Boettcher and J. Yule Bogue Scholarship for excellence in musical and academic work (2003) all from Northwestern University, and from the University of Wisconsin-Superior (UWS), a Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars SoTL Research Fellowship (2012-2013). In 2012 Lois received the UWS Academic Service Learning Award for her commitment to community schools, and designs of numerous mutually beneficial field programs in music education for educator preparation and schools. In 2011, she was interviewed as one of five “very experienced” music educators from the US for an article on what successful music teachers love about teaching music (Moore, P. (2011). Music from the Heart. Teaching Music: Journal of the National Association for Music Education, 2011, 18(4), 38-43.

Lois has spent a lifetime devoted to children and youth in schools and teacher education. Her efforts in research, publication, and education have resulted in new models of arts education, teacher preparation, and international programs. In recent years, she has developed a unique and effective learning community approach to educator preparation that has received national attention and interest. Under Lois’ effective model of experiential learning in music education, school educators, children and youth in schools, professors of education, and pre-service higher education students work together at a school site as a community of learners. http://www.nafme.org/music-education-multiage-learning-communities/

Private Studio: Throughout her professional life Lois has taught private piano, voice and composition. She is an adjudicator for the National Guild of Piano Teachers and has worked for numerous organizations in the role of adjudicator for children and youth singers, pianists, composers and choral groups. During the 1990s she served as the Voice Chair and Outreach to Education Chair for the Illinois State Music Teachers Association and has served as an adjudicator for the National Student Composition Competition (National Association for Music Education) for 12 years.

Conductor, Clinician, Composer: A veteran choral conductor and clinician, Lois is a frequent presenter for regional, state, national and international conferences on teaching and learning in the arts. She has authored numerous published articles, textbooks and provided chapter contributions for books on music and arts education. Composing and performing her own compositions in public since age 7, Lois’ songs, piano pieces, instrumental and choral pieces and musicals span a variety of levels of complexity, style, and instrumentation – from children’s songs and chamber pieces to works for full orchestra and double choirs.

Publishers: Publishers of Lois’ authored and composed works include: Oxford University Press; NAfME- Rowman & Littlefield; Sage Publications; Corwin Press; NAC International; NAC North America, LoVeeG Publishing and the National Association for Music Education.

Lois and husband Don reside in two locations: Superior, Wisconsin and Lake Zurich, Illinois. Their children and spouses reside in California and Germany and also work in music, art, education and banking.

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