IUP music alumna Rebecca Edmondson ’78 was recently recognized as the 2022 Hancock County Teacher of the Year. Edmondson teaches at Conners-Emerson School in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she has taught since 1990.
Rebecca Edmondson has been a music teacher for over 35 years. After receiving her music degree from IUP, she went on to earn a master of music in music education from the University of Maine.
Edmondson authored the articles “Beginning Violin: Pizzicato vs. Arco” (American String Teacher 55 [February 2005]: 50-53), “A Manual for Music Educators: Beginning and Augmenting the K-8 Strings Program,” and co-authored a new Maine musical for K-4, Plant Kindness and Gather Love, which premiered at the Criterion on May 10, 2018.
National recognition includes being designated as one of 12 in the United States being a Model Music Education Program by MENC: The National Association of Music Education (Blakeslee, Brown, and Hofmann. Model Music Programs: Ideas for Everyone. Maryland: MENC/Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2008: 24-29). In 2012 was chosen as the representative for the state of Maine as one of 50 in SBO's nationwide "50 Directors Who Make a Difference," and she twice won the Nebraska ASTA Fiddle Composition Competition. Her original tune, "March to the Maine Games," is performed by the Maine State Police Pipes and Drums and is played during the Police Academy's graduation and was also performed at the inauguration ceremony of Maine's Governor, Janet Mills.
Edmondson is founder and co-conductor with her son, Ethan Edmondson, also an IUP alumnus, of TEMPO: The Eastern Maine Pops Orchestra. At various times, she is music director at the Grand in addition to music director for the Gilbert and Sullivan Society and has served as vice president of the Acadia School of Traditional Music and Arts.
