InfoXchange '19
infoXchange poster.pdfinfoXchange ran again this year; it has become a regular biannual event. Dr Rob McWilliams presented two excellent sessions for the thirty teachers present. The first session for the morning was “Recruitment, Retention, Advocacy”. Rob presented us with different strategies to build your school music department. He made us think about the way we recruit students. He had some great ideas for getting kids onto the “hard” instruments and keeping them there. He introduced us some to some wonderful resources from Yamaha music to help us with the seemingly, never ending job of recruiting and retaining instrumental music students. Rob challenged us all to think about what, why and how we do what we do in our schools.
After a delicious morning tea, Rob’s second session focused on repertoire; “How Important Is Repertoire?” Rob unpacked the increasingly formulaic nature of concert band repertoire and led us through the steps to help identify the “good” music out there from the “bad”. He helped direct us to find the best for our school groups and highlighted a few of his favourite composers along the way. Rob has a really useful website if you would like to further investigate his ideas