The Kodály Summer Institute at NYU Steinhardt (founded 1989) was again delivered “live through remote instruction.” 26 students from the New York City area (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, Westchester County), from other states (Connecticut, Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey, Virginia), and from the world (Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam) completed three weeks of immersion work. Six faculty members returned from recent summers—Jerry Kerlin, Susan Glass, Esther Liu Harris, Anna (Panni) Kovács, László Nemes, and Heather Waters. Dr. László Nemes, for a second summer, offered a week-long special course—Kodály Musicianship Workshop.
Special guest lectures enlivened the Summer 2021 offerings. Susan Mislove Donnelly (NYU Kodály 1997) offered Kodály Café 1: A Conversation—What Does an Antiracist Music Curriculum Look Like in a Kodály Classroom? For Kodály Café 2, Dr. Eugenia Oi Yan Yau (NYU Kodály 2011) returned to offer a look at her work as Music Chair at City University of New York (CUNY) Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)—Resilitient Teaching to Singing—Community Building. Dr. Esther Liu Harris, NYU Kodály faculty member since 1998, presented Kodály Café 3—The Music-Body Connection, an abstract of her OAKE Conference 2021 presentation. For the NYU Kodály Annual Lecture, Albert Tay, Founder and Director of the Kodály Academy of Music (KAM) in Singapore, presented The Adaptation of Kodály-Inspired Music Education in Singapore.
The Kodály 2021 eConcert, like Summer 2020, became a virtual picture of the program, with performance demonstrations (“informances”) of Solfege, Kodály Methodology, Traditional Materials and Research, and Chorus. Anna (Panni) Kovács directed the Chorus in artistic performances that included the Gloria from Heiligmesse (Holy Mass), Hob. XXII:10 (Missa Sancti Bernardi von Offida) by Franz Joseph Haydn.
We hope that in the Summer of 2022 students will again meet vis-à-vis at the Washington Square Campus of NYU. Kudos go to Dr. Elise Sobol, Director of Music Education, who has advanced the NYU Kodály Summer Institute during these challenging times.
– Dr. Jerry Kerlin, Director