OUR MANDATE

The CMEC Research Advisory Board brings together Canadian-based researchers with national and international records of excellence in fields pertaining to and/or intersecting with music education. RAB members will offer their expertise, rooted in sound, evidence-based research trends, toward critical review, support, and validation of research and advocacy efforts, ensuring our initiatives remain current and relevant.

MEMBERS

Dr. Eric Favaro is a passionate education advocate who has devoted his entire career to helping teachers gain a better understanding of the importance of an education in and through the arts. Trained as a music educator, he is respected nationally and internationally as an innovator for effective programs in Arts Education, and is considered to be a leader in his field.

Eric taught elementary music for several years, served as Coordinator for Arts Education with the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, and spent the last six years of his career as Arts Education Consultant for the Nova Scotia Department of Education.  He has taught undergraduate and graduate education courses at several Canadian universities, and is a University Advisor for pre-service teachers at Mount St. Vincent University and Acadia University.  In 2011 he was appointed as Visiting Fellow to the Ministry of Education in Singapore, and in that capacity he is an advisor for teacher development in music education.

Eric has served on several provincial, national and international boards, and currently serves as Chair of the Coalition for Music Education, a director on the CMEA Board, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Canadian Network for Arts and Learning.  He actively participates in research projects on current educational issues with colleagues around the world.

Now retired from public education, Eric operates his consulting firm, Artscape Consulting Ltd. and for the past ten years he has built a vibrant business that focuses on training, research, and development.

Lynn Tucker is Associate Dean Experiential and Global Learning, and Associate Professor, Teaching Stream at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media, Music and Culture program. She has proudly conducted the UTSC Concert Band since 2004, and teaches courses in community music, musicianship, and small ensembles. Lynn founded and facilitates This Uke’s for U-TSC, a weekly ukulele session open to all members of the campus community. Engaging people in lifelong music-making is at the forefront of her work with research interests in learner-centered pedagogy, facilitation, community music, avocational music-making, and leadership. Lynn is President of the Ontario Band Association, Co-Editor of the Canadian Winds/Vents canadiens, professional journal of the Canadian Band Association, and serves on the board of the Coalition for Music Education in Canada. Her dedication to fostering accessible music-making opportunities for students regardless of career path was recognized with a Canadian Music Educators’ Association Excellence in Leadership Award.

associate professor of music education

(he/him)

adam patrick bell is an associate professor of music education. He is the author of Dawn of the DAW (Oxford, 2018) and editor of the Music Technology Cookbook (2020). adam is the editor of Canadian Music Educator and serves on the editorial boards of International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Music, Technology & Education, Journal of Popular Music Education, TOPICS, and Visions of Research in Music Education. Currently, adam is the principal investigator of three projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including “Disability-Led Musical Instrument Design” (Insight Grant), “Canadian Accessible Musical Instruments Network” (Partnership Development Grant), and “Facilitating Anti-Ableist Remote Music Making” (Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative).

Associate Professor
University of Western Ontario,
Don Wright Faculty of Music

Cathy Benedict is an associate professor in the Don Wright Faculty of Music, University of Western Ontario. She has presented multiple workshops to national/international audiences on topics such as critical pedagogy, critical listening, philosophical interrogations of pedagogy and curriculum, ethics of functional literacy, music in the elementary classroom and integrated practices. She has taught undergraduate and graduate classes including Introduction to Music Education, Elementary Pedagogy, Curriculum Design, Inclusion, Critical Readings in Music Education and has taught week-long courses internationally in Beijing, Guatemala and Ecuador. Her scholarly interests lay in facilitating educative environments in which students take on the perspective of a justice-oriented citizen. To this end her research agenda focuses on the processes of education and the ways in which teachers and students interrogate taken-for-granted, normative practices. She has written numerous book chapters and published in journals such as Canadian Music Educator, Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, Philosophy of Music Education Review, Music Education Research, Research Studies in Music Education, Action, Criticism and Theory for Music Education, British Journal of Music Education, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, the Brazilian journal ABEM, co-edited the journal Theory Into Practice and the 2012 National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook (Teachers College Press), and The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice and Music Education (Oxford University Press). Her recent book, Music and Social Justice: A Guide for Elementary Educators is available through Oxford University Press.

Associate Professor, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Toronto Scarborough

Roger Mantie is Associate Professor, Department of Arts, Culture and Media at University of Toronto Scarborough, with a graduate appointment at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. His teaching and scholarship focus on connections between education and wellness, with an emphasis on lifelong engagement in and with music and the arts. Roger is the author of Music, Leisure, Education: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives (2021), co-author of Education, Music, and the Social Lives of Undergraduates: Collegiate A Cappella and the Pursuit of Happiness (2020), and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education (2017) and the Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure (2016). Complete information at rogermantie.com.

Associate Professor of Music Education, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto

she/her/ôu

Born and raised in Iran, I am a newcomer settler working in the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, as an Associate Professor of Music Education. My research areas include equity and politics of contemporary music education, cultural studies, and popular music, as well as anarchism, activism, and improvisation in music education scenes. Concluding a longitudinal research on the music education of rock musicians in Iran, I have recently begun research examining the impact of cultural programs provided for the refugee newcomer populations in Canada. Moreover, two of my colleagues and I have developed an arts-based participatory action research to articulate the issues arts workers and arts organizations are facing, build upon constructive solutions already identified by the arts sector for the cultural workforce in response to current circumstances, and map out next steps for the arts and higher education sectors in the Toronto, Ontario, and Canada to build more equitable spaces for arts workers to work and thrive. A podcast series and an interactive traveling art exhibition including community members and artists will be two of the outcomes of this research. I hold degrees from Northwestern University, New York University, Kingston University, London, and University of Art, Tehran.

Professor of Psychology
University of Montreal

Dr. Peretz is a professor of Psychology at the University of Montreal and the co-holder of a Casavant Research chair in neurocognition of music. Her research focuses on the musical potential of ordinary people, its neural correlates, its heritability and its specificity relative to language. She is renowned for her work on congenital and acquired musical disorders (amusia) and on the biological foundations of music processing in general. She has published over 270 scientific papers on a variety of topics in neurocognition of music, from perception, memory, and emotions to singing and dancing. Dr. Peretz has recently published a book for the lay audience on “How music sculpts our brain” to better understand how the process of learning music impacts the brain. The book enlightens us on the main findings of more  possible, into actionable recommendations directly applicable to the music room. It makes the main findings of the neuroscience of music accessible to all those involved in music education —aspiring musicians, professors, learning adults, parents, or educational advisors.

Associate Professor of Music Education, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Victoria

Dr. Anita Prest was born and raised in Montreal (Tiohtià:ke). She is of Italian descent. She is grateful to live and work on the beautiful, unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples. Anita is Associate Professor of Music Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). Guided by an Indigenous Steering Committee and alongside multi-First Nation, Métis, and non-Indigenous partners, she engages in community-based participatory research to examine the embedding of local Indigenous knowledge, pedagogies, and worldviews in British Columbia’s public school music classes. This ongoing research has been supported by three Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants. She recently was awarded a University of Victoria Faculty of Education Award for Excellence in Research. Anita teaches undergraduate music education courses to both secondary music specialist and elementary generalist teacher candidates, plus graduate research methodology courses. She is co-founder of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) Decolonizing and Indigenizing Music Education special interest group that works to highlight the work of Indigenous scholars in music education. Anita is a member of the MayDay Steering Committee, and a commissioner for the ISME Commission on Policy: Culture, Education, and Media. She has presented papers in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Prior to her appointment at the University of Victoria, she taught K-12 music for 20 years in rural and metropolitan settings.

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