Interim President’s Message, August 2025
Welcome back to another exciting year of active music making, awesome lesson ideas, and a whole community of fellow music educators with whom to collaborate, through Idaho Orff! I hope that you have enjoyed a restful and rejuvenating summer and are ready and recharged for the new school year ahead. We have an interesting and inspiring slate of workshops ahead for you this year. You won’t want to miss any!
Our former Chapter President and friend, Falane Gerritsen, has moved her family to Salem Oregon where she has secured a teaching position in an elementary school and her children, Anthony and Jeanette are already involved in the local high school band program! We thank her for her dedicated service to Idaho Orff and wish her and her family the best as they settle into their new home. In the meantime, I have picked up the reins of leadership – but only until we find someone willing to step into the job of President and/or President Elect.
Idaho Orff needs new leadership! Our organization started by our founder, Velma Allen in the 1980’s, has been lovingly nurtured throughout several decades by us “old-timers” who are still serving. We LOVE our chapter but need fresh ideas and lots of energy to see it into the next decades. Please consider stepping up to the leadership position of President or President Elect. You will have mentors to assist you; I promise I will be one of them.
Our Fall workshop has been moved to September this year – September 19 and 20. Join us for two days with Martina Vasil, professor of Music Education at the University of Kentucky. Martina is well known in the Orff world for bringing popular music into the Schulwerk, and this will be the focus of her Friday workshop. Saturday she will demonstrate how she adds modern band instruments – drums, guitars – into the Orff instrumentarium, reflecting her work with the Modern Band (formerly Little Kids Rock) movement. We will be rockin’ and rollin’ at Willow Creek Elementary School!
Spring will bring us Sara Posey from Colorado for our February 21st meeting who will enlighten us with her workshop, Artful, Playful, Mindfulness: Integrating SEL into Orff Schulwerk. Sara’s lessons support students’ growth in self-awareness, empathy, collaboration, and emotional regulation. You'll leave with practical ideas that nurture both musicality and humanity—helping students thrive in school and beyond. Shall we invite our legislators?
March 28th will be the Chapter Share with our national conference attendees presenting some of the wonderful ideas they will glean at the Kentucky conference this November. Filling out the afternoon will be our “Treasures,” our retired members, who will present one of their all-time favorite lessons from the classroom.
As you settle into your music classrooms and your daily schedules, please know how important you are to the children you make music and magic with every single day. They know that your classroom will be a joyous space and a safe place to create and collaborate. They know that you will love and nurture them, seeing each one for the special child that they are and the caring human they will become. They know you will celebrate and cheer their talents and abilities and correct their behavior when they need it. You may not know how you have touched a life until much later when they are able to tell you when they come back to visit your classroom as an enthusiastic teenager singing in the choir or playing in the band or orchestra; or when they are an adult at the grocery store who comes up to touch your sleeve and ask if you remember them from elementary choir (this happened today to me at Costco J). I ran into a former student at Red Fish Lake last summer and after she asked if I was Mrs. CK and we hugged, she gave me the finest compliment of my entire career – more than any award or recognition I ever received. She told me that out of all the classes she had, including high school, my elementary music classroom was where she learned the most about how to treat other people…
What a gift she returned to me! I’m not certain there are many professions that can offer these gifts – to our children we work with every day, and to ourselves as educators and fellow human beings.
In these days when we see far too much of the dark side of humanity, let us keep doing what we do best! Engage your students in active music making, creativity, collaboration, and community-building. It isn’t an easy job, but let Idaho Orff celebrate you, cheer you on, and offer great, practical lesson ideas and strategies.
Best wishes for a fabulous 2025-2026 school year!
Much Love,
Lori CK
Welcome back to another exciting year of active music making, awesome lesson ideas, and a whole community of fellow music educators with whom to collaborate, through Idaho Orff! I hope that you have enjoyed a restful and rejuvenating summer and are ready and recharged for the new school year ahead. We have an interesting and inspiring slate of workshops ahead for you this year. You won’t want to miss any!
Our former Chapter President and friend, Falane Gerritsen, has moved her family to Salem Oregon where she has secured a teaching position in an elementary school and her children, Anthony and Jeanette are already involved in the local high school band program! We thank her for her dedicated service to Idaho Orff and wish her and her family the best as they settle into their new home. In the meantime, I have picked up the reins of leadership – but only until we find someone willing to step into the job of President and/or President Elect.
Idaho Orff needs new leadership! Our organization started by our founder, Velma Allen in the 1980’s, has been lovingly nurtured throughout several decades by us “old-timers” who are still serving. We LOVE our chapter but need fresh ideas and lots of energy to see it into the next decades. Please consider stepping up to the leadership position of President or President Elect. You will have mentors to assist you; I promise I will be one of them.
Our Fall workshop has been moved to September this year – September 19 and 20. Join us for two days with Martina Vasil, professor of Music Education at the University of Kentucky. Martina is well known in the Orff world for bringing popular music into the Schulwerk, and this will be the focus of her Friday workshop. Saturday she will demonstrate how she adds modern band instruments – drums, guitars – into the Orff instrumentarium, reflecting her work with the Modern Band (formerly Little Kids Rock) movement. We will be rockin’ and rollin’ at Willow Creek Elementary School!
Spring will bring us Sara Posey from Colorado for our February 21st meeting who will enlighten us with her workshop, Artful, Playful, Mindfulness: Integrating SEL into Orff Schulwerk. Sara’s lessons support students’ growth in self-awareness, empathy, collaboration, and emotional regulation. You'll leave with practical ideas that nurture both musicality and humanity—helping students thrive in school and beyond. Shall we invite our legislators?
March 28th will be the Chapter Share with our national conference attendees presenting some of the wonderful ideas they will glean at the Kentucky conference this November. Filling out the afternoon will be our “Treasures,” our retired members, who will present one of their all-time favorite lessons from the classroom.
As you settle into your music classrooms and your daily schedules, please know how important you are to the children you make music and magic with every single day. They know that your classroom will be a joyous space and a safe place to create and collaborate. They know that you will love and nurture them, seeing each one for the special child that they are and the caring human they will become. They know you will celebrate and cheer their talents and abilities and correct their behavior when they need it. You may not know how you have touched a life until much later when they are able to tell you when they come back to visit your classroom as an enthusiastic teenager singing in the choir or playing in the band or orchestra; or when they are an adult at the grocery store who comes up to touch your sleeve and ask if you remember them from elementary choir (this happened today to me at Costco J). I ran into a former student at Red Fish Lake last summer and after she asked if I was Mrs. CK and we hugged, she gave me the finest compliment of my entire career – more than any award or recognition I ever received. She told me that out of all the classes she had, including high school, my elementary music classroom was where she learned the most about how to treat other people…
What a gift she returned to me! I’m not certain there are many professions that can offer these gifts – to our children we work with every day, and to ourselves as educators and fellow human beings.
In these days when we see far too much of the dark side of humanity, let us keep doing what we do best! Engage your students in active music making, creativity, collaboration, and community-building. It isn’t an easy job, but let Idaho Orff celebrate you, cheer you on, and offer great, practical lesson ideas and strategies.
Best wishes for a fabulous 2025-2026 school year!
Much Love,
Lori CK
