Dr. Amy Spears
School of Music Assistant Professor Amy Spears is an author of two articles published in peer-reviewed journals in 2024.
Dr. Spears based the articles on her recent international sabbatical to Ghana and the United Kingdom.
The first article, “Ghanaian collegiate music students who play brass instruments’ music education experiences at the pre-tertiary level,” was co-authored with her Ghanaian colleague, Dr. John-Doe Dordzro, a lecturer in music education at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana.
The article appears in International Journal of Music Education. 42(4), 704-723.
The qualitative study investigated the musical experiences of seven Ghanaian university music students who primarily play a brass instrument in a university band. The purpose of the study was to share the students’ musical experiences during their secondary school years to better understand what the experiences were and how they impacted their musical abilities at the collegiate level.
The second article, “Inside Eight Musical Futures Classrooms: What I Learned,” can be found in Music Educators Journal, 111(2), 35-41. In the article, Spears shares what she learned as she visited the classrooms of music teachers in the U.K. who teach using the ethos and philosophy of popular music pedagogy, based on the research of informal music learning.
Spears joined SUNY Fredonia in Fall 2024 as a tenure-track Music Education faculty member.
