Author: Craig Dabelstein

This is the most economical way I know to describe a career spent pursuing a sound that never quite materialised.

After publishing my reflections on structural conflicts of interest within the wind band world, several predictable objections emerged.

People talk about a “successful music program” as if it were a simple thing — as if it were merely the result of a good teacher, or enthusiastic students, or a few concerts a year.

There is something worse than a student who never participates in the arts at school.

Because emotional responses to sound are shaped by personal history and aesthetic development, no single study playlist works for everyone.

If change in music education is to occur, musicians may need to do something profoundly uncomfortable.

When music can always be heard, it no longer has to be longed for.

If the wind band is ever to possess a living canon, it may be found in the music that history never allowed to stay still long enough to be heard.