About
I seldom do great things alone...
Maggie Polk-Olivo is the music teacher and arts coordinator at Fairview Elementary School, a school for the arts. She serves as the Bridges Musical Arts Youth Organization's program director, Jacobs Academy's IU Musical Beginnings director, and is the founder and director of the BloomingSongs project. In the summer, she teaches music composition at the Rocky Ridge Music Center in Estes Park, Colorado.
Maggie Polk-Olivo is a musical collaborator, composer, educator and performer. Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Maggie moved to Bloomington, Indiana. She completed her Bachelors in Music Composition and before the age 20, she had pieces performed at the Music Educators National Conference, was a National Young Composer Award semi-finalist, and was the Indiana University Young Composer's Scholarship recipient. She studied music composition with P.Q.Phan, Sven-David Sandstrom, Don Freund, Claude Baker, and Marilyn Shrude.
She completed a Masters in Arts Teaching Certification at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying violin with Henryk Kowalski, with teaching certification in K-12 general, choral and instrumental music. Her early childhood music training spans methodologies of John Feierabend, Musikgärten, and Orff-Keetman Schulwerk, with certification in the Kodály Methodology.
She is a member of the Indiana Kodály Educators Association, Indiana Music Educators Association, National Association and Federation for Music Educators, and the American String Teachers Association. Maggie has presented teacher training sessions on curriculum design, music literacy connections, music composition, engaging cultural bearers, and BloomingSongs.org to the Indiana Music Educators Association, American String Teachers Association, South Central Indiana Association for Early Youth and Childhood, and Monroe County Community Schools. She's been recognized as a "Star of Excellence" and was awarded the Chamber of Commerce's "2021 Teacher of the Year."
As a collaborator, Maggie has worked with leading musicians throughout the world with school/community residencies, her BloomingSongs project, Foundation grants, and community partnerships. With support from Monroe County Community School, Smithville Charitable Foundation, and the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Arts Zone grants, she has brought in musicians: Ben&Winnie, Bernard Woma, Salaam, Taffie Matiure, and Wilson Shitandi into area schools as musical cultural bearers and visiting artists. Her BloomingSongs project has reached several thousands of families and children, producing dozens of original pieces and recordings. Most recently, she worked with poet- Luba Winship and artist- Haran Kim on "Illuminating Apologues," a commission from the Amity Trio.
