Featured Clinicians

Ruth Brittin
Featured Clinician
Ruth Brittin, Professor of Music Education at University of the Pacific, holds music degrees from Florida State University (Ph.D.) and Texas Tech University (B.M.E., M.M.E.). An active researcher, she is published regularly in the Journal for Research in Music Education and Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education and is editor of Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, the research journal for practitioners. Brittin also presents her work worldwide through the International Society for Research in Music Education. She has authored the teacher’s editions of the Yamaha Advantage instrumental method books, is an active clinician and adjudicator, and continues to perform on French horn throughout Northern California. Her decade of work in California builds on eight years of teaching at Syracuse University in New York. She collaborates closely with instrumental, choral, and general music teachers, developing intensive fieldwork and internship partnerships at both elementary and secondary levels. Brittin has served as representative for Collegiate, Research, and Special Learners divisions for California Music Educators Association and was named CMEA’s 2003 University Teacher of the Year.

Alice-Ann Darrow
Featured Clinician
Alice-Ann Darrow is the Irvin Cooper Professor of Music at Florida State University. Her teaching and research interests are teaching music to special populations and the role of music in deaf culture. Related to these topics, she has been the recipient of numerous federal, university, and corporate grants, and has published numerous monographs, research articles, and book chapters. She is editor of the text Introduction to Approaches in Music Therapy and coauthor of Teaching Music in Special Education. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the Bulletin for the Council on Research in Music Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, and The Journal of Music Therapy, and has been the recipient of research and clinical practice awards from the American Music Therapy Association.

Steven J. Morrison
Featured Clinician
Steven J. Morrison is Associate Professor of Music and Donald E. Petersen Endowed Fellow at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses in instrumental music education, music in higher education, classroom management, and research methods. He has taught at the elementary, junior high, and senior high levels and has conducted and arranged for school bands, orchestras, and chamber groups throughout the U.S. In addition to his work in instrumental teaching and learning, he is also an active researcher investigating neurological responses to music listening and perceptual and performance aspects of pitch-matching and intonation. His research also includes conducting expressivity, musical modeling, music preference, and the relationship of musical responses to diverse cultural contexts. His articles have appeared in various journals including the Music Educators Journal, the Journal of Research in Music Education, the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. His work on music and brain function has been published in Neuroimage and the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is also a contributing author to the text Science and Psychology of Music Performance published by Oxford University Press and the new text, Musician and Teacher: An Orientation to Music Education co-authored with ­colleagues Patricia Campbell and Steven Demorest.