ORFF Workshops 2018-19 Season

April 27, 2019; 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
David Thaxton
Seeds and Scaffolds: Growing Improvisation
in the Orff Classroom

Come Play!!! Experience a plethora of games, activities, techniques, pieces and processes to facilitate creation and improvisation with movement, song, percussion and recorder. From storytelling to Brazilian jumping games, building structures for creation and improvisation begin and end with joyful and active play!

David Thaxton is from Sparks, Nevada where is currently in his 23rd year teaching Elementary music to pre-K through 6th grade. After studying bass trombone under Buddy Baker and Jack Robinson at the University of Northern Colorado, he studied the Orff Schulwerk approach under Elizabeth Gilpatrick, Judith Cole and Penny Mahoney at Colorado State University, UNC Greeley and the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he received all three levels of Orff Certification, as well as studying under Kay Lehto at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to receive certification as an AOSA approved Levels Course Educator. David teaches Level I pedagogy for the University of Nevada, Reno Summer Orff Course as well as the Orff Level I pedagogy and Level II Recorder for the San Diego Summer Orff Course. David has presented workshops and clinics at local, state and national levels and presents to Orff chapters throughout the country. He has also served as President of the Sierra Nevada Chapter of AOSA where he was co-founder of the Sierra Nevada Orff Festival. At the national level, he has served on the Editorial Board of The Echo Journal of the American Orff Schulwerk Association and is currently on the Editorial Board of Reverberations. For the past two years, he has been the Creative Director and Lead Clinician for the Four Corners Young Musicians Summer Camp in Durango, Colorado. David was also recently awarded the “Spotlight Educator Award”  for the Winter of 2017 from the American Center for Elemental Music and Movement (ACEMM).