Professor: Music Education

David Myers is an internationally regarded music educator and proponent of innovation in higher music education. Prior to coming to the University of Minnesota in 2008, he founded the Center for Educational Partnerships and its groundbreaking Sound Learning partnership among Georgia State University, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, community musicians, and inner-city schools.
A former public school teacher and accomplished organist, he has been the American consultant for a joint Master of Music degree for New Audiences
and Innovative Practice among five European conservatories. He has served as
panel chair and panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and
keynoted numerous meetings, including the League of American Orchestras
national convention, the International Research in Music Education
Conference at the University of Exeter (UK), and the national meeting of the
College Music Society. He has published, presented, and consulted widely,
including work with the National Association of Schools of Music, the
National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, Opera America, the Music
Educators National Conference, the College Music Society, and the
International Society for Music Education. He has served as author and
editor for sections on lifelong learning and school-community partnerships
in two major music education handbooks. He currently serves on the
editorial committees of the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music
Education and the International Journal of Community Music. His 1996
research for NEA, Beyond Tradition: Partnerships Among Orchestras, Schools,
and Communities, remains a seminal publication in the field. Dr. Myers’s
work has been recognized by the Atlanta Partners in Education and in Harvard
Project Zero’s study, Qualities of Quality. He received both the junior and
senior outstanding faculty awards from the College of Arts and Sciences at
Georgia State University, as well as the 2008 Distinguished Career Award
from the Georgia Music Educators Association. In 2010, his biography was
included in the New Groves Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition. As an
evaluator, he has conducted research for the League of American Orchestras
on the Orchestra Leadership Academy, the Institutional Vision Program, the
Ford Made in America program, and the American Conducting Fellows Program.
In addition to NEA, his work has been funded by the Texaco Foundation, the
Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, and the Cousins
Foundation. Currently, he serves as a Governing Board member of the St. Paul
Chamber Orchestra.

Dr. Myers has been a professor of curriculum and instruction at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1993 was a visiting professor in the
Sydney (AUS) Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. He holds degrees
from Lebanon Valley College, the Eastman School of Music, and The University
of Michigan.