Bret P. Smith
View Calendar for "Bret P. Smith"Assistant Professor of Music Education (B.A., B.M. with honors, University of Washington; M.M., Ph.D., University of Michigan)
Bret P. Smith, Assistant Professor at Central Washington University, is a teacher educator, conductor, and cellist who specializes in instrumental music education. He holds degrees in music and systematic musicology from the University of Washington, where he worked with James C. Carlsen and Barbara Reeder Lundquist, and a Master of Music and Doctor of Philosophy in music education from the University of Michigan, where his mentors were Robert L. Culver, James O. Froseth, Richard J. Colwell, and Anthony Elliott.
Dr. Smith has taught instrumental and vocal music from elementary to high school in Washington state, and was a member of the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Music from 1999 to 2005. He has served on the Executive Boards of the Washington and Maryland Music Educators Associations, and the faculty of the Maryland Summer Youth Music camp and the Laughing Horse Youth Orchestra Festival. He has conducted numerous honor orchestras, including the Prince George’s County High School Honor Orchestra in Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center in 2000. He has participated in the Aspen and Marrowstone music festivals, the International Institute for Chamber Music, and the International Workshop, where he studied conducting with William LaRue Jones and Marvin Rabin. His recent clinics include the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Eastern Division Music Educators National Conference, the American String Teachers Association national conference, and the West Virginia, Colorado, and Washington Music Educators Association state conferences. He frequently provides in-service sessions in the public schools, adjudicates orchestra festivals, and works with private arts organizations.
His research interests include student motivation and personal investment in instrumental music study, personality and music teaching and learning, and the assessment of musical learning. He has published articles in several journals, including the Psychology of Music, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, the Journal of Research in Music Education, and the American String Teacher, and has contributed to both volumes of GIA's Teaching Music Through Performance in Orchestra. He is currently president of MENC’s Special Research Interest Group on Assessment.