Journal of Historical Research in Music Education

Early nonsectarian Sunday Schools provided instruction in spelling, reading, writing, and singing in the years prior to the introduction of free, public education in the United States. This study explores the Sunday school as a laboratory for public school music education. Several of the first Sunday school tunebooks included theoretical introductions with elementary instruction in music reading much like the early school songbooks that followed. Three early tunebooks will be considered, E. Osborn’s The Sunday School Music Book (1826), Ezra Barrett’s Sabbath School Psalmody (1828), and Elam Ives, Jr’s American Sunday-School Psalmody (1832). In each case, the various “experiments” introduced in the tunebooks will be discussed. Some of these experiments were rejected in the public schools, but others had lasting importance.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century a number of external music examining systems were introduced to New Zealand. Two of them, Trinity College, London, and the Associated Board, gained a strong following and became de facto standards in the absence of a national music conservatorium. This article briefly outlines the beginning of external exams in England and follows their export to various overseas members of the British Empire. Graded music exams as a form of tuition engendered considerable debate as to efficacy, merit, and overall validity. Trinity College arrived first in New Zealand, in 1888, followed by the Associated Board in 1897, and their rapid assumption in the southern city of Dunedin is documented and used as a case study of their progress up until 1916. There is a background discussion on the growth and use of post-nominal letters in the local music teaching profession, and the increasing use of formal qualifications by music teachers is noted. These included the professional diplomas from both schools, and the role they played in the formation of a local professional body is explored.

The Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri has a long history with unique beginnings. After the Civil War, Central College (Central Methodist’s original name) grew alongside a “Female Seminary,” Howard-Payne Female College. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the two schools developed their own distinct musical cultures with Howard-Payne faculty developing a music curriculum, and Central students forming their own musical ensembles. When the schools merged in 1923 these two cultures united to create a conservatory of music at a time when many other American conservatories were being established. Just before the merger, Kansas City banker Edward Fletcher Swinney, who had strong family ties to the Fayette area and a history of philanthropy towards causes in Missouri education, donated $35,000 to Howard-Payne College for the construction of the conservatory building that would eventually bear his name. This article focuses on the early history of both Central College and Howard-Payne Female College, the role that music played at both schools (as a curricular and non-curricular activity) and the events leading to the formation of Central College’s music curriculum and construction of the Swinney Conservatory.

The field of music education was engaged in unprecedented cross-cultural efforts with Latin American music educators and Latin American music during the period between 1939 and 1946. These inter-American efforts related to the Good Neighbor policies with an emphasis on education and culture in diplomacy. Music educators collaborated with governmental and non-governmental organizations to undertake activities including the development of curricular materials incorporating Latin American music for use in US schools and participating in person-to-person exchanges between American and Latin American music educators. The two genres of music deemed appropriate for schools, folk music and art music, were reinforced in the inter-American educational projects. This combination of efforts to diversify curricular materials and cross-cultural exchanges provided new opportunities for assessing the representation of Latin American musical cultures in US music education.

Zadok Adolu-Otojoka (b. 1932) is one of the prominent music educators and professional performers in the recent history of arts education in East Africa. A Ugandan by nationality, Adolu-Otojoka has served in different professional capacities as music educator, opera singer, folk musician, dancer, composer, and education/culture administrator, at national and regional levels. Educated in Uganda and in the United States, Adolu-Otojoka excelled as a bass-baritone and featured in several professional opera performances alongside celebrated European and American actors and actresses such as Ray Charman, Lance Hardy, Jane Wise, Mike Laflin, and Henry Pearson in the 1970s and 1980s. His most memorable production was Jesus Christ Superstar in which he performed as Caiaphas, in Nairobi, Kenya. His long and distinguished music teaching career spans over half a century starting in the early 1950s through 2006, during which he taught vocal performance, instruments, music theory, and dance and drama courses in the East African region. Although his career is widely discussed, very little or no documentation of his celebrated life is available for reference. Therefore, this oral history was intended to chronicle historical patterns of music education in Uganda through his testimonies as one of the pioneers of music education in colonial and post-independence East Africa. Adolu-Otojoka’s experiences will not only provide valuable inspiration for the young music education discipline in Uganda, but also insights regarding multicultural music education perspectives in general.