McNeese State University Kodaly Institute instructor Lamar Robertson conducts the Institute Choir and the Children’s Choir in a rehearsal for an evening concert. This is the 16th year McNeese has offered the Kodály Institute, the only one of its kind in the state.

Nineteen students recently attended McNeese State University’s 16th annual Kodály Institute, a three-week summer program for current and aspiring music educators to become certified in the Kodály Method – an instruction technique for music education developed in Hungary in the mid-20th Century. The institute is the only one of its kind in the state and included students from Georgia, California, Maryland and Washington D.C.

The certification program requires at least three summers of study in solfege, methodology and materials, folk song analysis, conducting, recorder, chamber music, folk dancing and choir.

“This course has given me a whole new perspective about music and the way to teach music in the classroom,” student William Clement of DeQuincy said. “This has made me a better teacher and I haven’t even started teaching yet.”

The Kodály Method is named for composer and educator Zoltán Kodály, who believed, among other things, that music literacy is vital to all children and that education could not be complete without the study of music. Kodály, who believed that children were more receptive to art than adults and should be exposed to the finest forms of music, also believed that children should learn to read music at the same time they learn to read words.

According to Michele Martin, head of the department of performing arts at McNeese, the Kodály philosophy is founded on the belief that music enhances quality of life. The method is based on the natural act of singing, the tools of solfege and the use of folk music.

“Teachers leave after the first summer with lesson plans and activities that create new excitement and direction in their classrooms,” Martin said. “Each summer I see revalidation of the program’s quality and mission through the accomplishments of its participants during the grueling session, through their educational achievements when they get in the classrooms and through the continued recognition of the institute as a sponsored program by the Organization of American Kodály Educators.”

The affirmation was further strengthened this year, when the National Association of Schools of Music accepted the institute’s curriculum as an approved certification program and a concentration on the Master of Music Education degree offered at McNeese, according to Martin. The Board of Regents also formally recognized the certificate program this year.

Students who attended the 2008 Kodály Institute at McNeese were Tim Broussard, Jessica Gremillion and Lori Young, all of Sulphur; Sarah Currier and Sarah Walker, both of Lafayette; William Clement of DeQuincy; Rachel Davis of Smyrna, Ga.; Corey Dearborn, Heidi Dearborn and James McKenzie, all of Chico, Calif.; Corey Dotson, Peggy Fletcher, Christine Miller and Jennifer Steeley, all of Lake Charles; Amanda Gentry of Westlake; Honorine Mier of Broussard; Laurie Robertson of Houston; Hannah Schlage-Busch of Rockville, Md.; and Mary Townsend of Washington. Faculty members were Ann Eisen, Jonathan Rappaport, Kari Jo McCarty, Annette Larsen and Lamar Robertson.