Teaching
Currently Emmy is adjunct music faculty at Alverno College where she teaches music history and coaches chamber ensembles.
Emmy is passionate about helping others to realize the joys and fulfillment of learning a musical instrument.
She is a teaching artist for Sistema Ravinia, an El Sistema inspired program in the Chicago area. In her work with Sistema Ravinia, Emmy leads sectionals and band at schools in at-risk communities and is able to help bring music education to students who might not otherwise have the opportunity.
As the low brass instructor for several schools in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Emmy maintains a large private studio. She strives to create a supportive and encouraging environment in which students can gain the confidence they need to reach their potential.
Emmy has recently become interested in and is currently researching motivation and mindset as it relates to education. Studies show that when students have internalized and taken ownership of goals, they are happier, healthier, and learn more quickly than if learning centers around gaining extrinsic rewards or avoiding punishment. In her teaching, Emmy strives to create an environment that encourages intrinsic motivation and a growth mindset (the idea that traits such as artistic ability and intelligence can be improved and are not predetermined) by encouraging their imaginations and creativity and by working cooperatively to find goals they are excited and passionate about. It is important to her to help her students develop a strong sense of purpose that will enable them to have patience and perseverance through challenges in music and in life.
In the summers of 2019 and 2018 Emmy traveled to El Salvador as a teaching artist with the MusAid organization. Emmy worked with students at El Sistema El Salvador, teaching private lessons, group lessons, and technique class. It was an unforgettable experience meeting many kind and dedicated educators and working with exceptional and highly motivated students. Emmy was inspired and touched by the spirit of generosity she found in the El Salvadorian people. She also fell in love with fried plantains and won the pupusa-eating contest.