Dr. John M. Feierabend is considered one of the leading authorities on music and movement development in childhood. He is Professor Emeritus and former Director of Music Education at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford and is a past president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators. He has given presentations in all 50 states and many other countries, and is the author of over 80 books, recordings, and DVDs, several of which served as the inspiration for the award-winning PBS children’s television series Lomax: The Hound of Music.

Dr. Feierabend has been honored as a Lowell Mason Fellow by the National Association for Music Education (NAfME); was named University Educator of the Year by the Connecticut Music Educators Association; received the Outstanding Alumni Award from Wayne State University, the Outstanding Educator Award from the Organization of American Kodály Educators, and the James Bent Award for outstanding achievement in scholarship and creativity from the University of Hartford. He was also the first U.S. recipient of the LEGO Prize, an international award given annually to “an individual who has made a distinctive contribution to the betterment of children.”

Dr. Feierabend remains committed to collecting, preserving, and teaching the diverse folk music of our country and using that folk music as a bridge to help children understand and enjoy classical music. Dr. Feierabend’s creativity and research have resulted in two music methods: First Steps in Music, a music and movement program for infants through elementary-aged children, and Conversational Solfege, a music literacy method suitable for elementary through college-aged student.

Dr. Feierabend’s teaching has provided thousands of teachers and their students with the materials and techniques to build community through music by evoking the enthusiastic participation of all people. To that end, his approach strives for all people to become tuneful, beatful, and artful through research-based and developmentally appropriate pedagogies while promoting the use of quality literature. In the summer of 2012, a group of dedicated and like-minded educators honored Dr. Feierabend’s forty-plus years of teaching and research with the formation of the Feierabend Association for Music Education (FAME). For more information, visit www.feierabendmusic.org, www.giamusic.com/feierabend, and the Feierabend Fundamentals Facebook Page.

Additional Resource Links

• When Opportunity Knocks: Students Get a Glimpse of Their Future Professions
• Developing Music Literacy: An Aural Approach for an Aural Art
• Handout: Singing Upper Grades
• Handout: First Steps in Teaching Part-Singing
• The Hartt School's National Center for Music and Movement in the Early Years
• Handout: First Steps in Music: Music and Movement in the Early Years
• Handout: First Steps in Music: Move, Move, Move
• Handout: Developing Rhythmic and Melodic Literacy Using Classical Music
• Handout: Movement Upper Grades
• Handout: Infant/Toddler Sampler
• Letter to the Principal
• Music and Movement for Infants and Toddlers: Naturally Wonder-full
• Handout: Developing Music Literacy Using Conversational Solfege
• First Steps in Music Assessment Form
• Handout: First Steps in Creative Movement
• Handout: Using Classical Music to Teach Beat, Meter and Form
• Handout: Songs that Dance, Dances that Sing
• Using First Steps in Music with non-music elementary teachers
• Hi-resolution image of John Feierabend