Ewa Wilczynski has a Masters degree in Music Education from Marie Curie University in Poland. She has obtained Orff-Schulwerk Teachers Training Certification (Levels 1-3) from Utah State University and completed the International Summer Course 2014 in Carl Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria. More recently, she completed the 2017 Early Childhood Music Professional Development Course (Level 1) in the Gordon Institute for Music Learning at Temple University. Ewa is an experienced preschool music teacher and has taught flute, piano, and music theory for over 35 years in Poland, New Jersey, and Utah. She is currently on the faculty of the Youth Conservatory at Utah State University and serves as director of the Cadenza Choir at Cache Children's Choir. Ewa teaches music classes in the Stokes Nature Preschool, We Friends Preschool, USU DDE Early Care and Education Center and offers private lessons in her studio. She has presented at Utah Early Childhood Conference, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah Chapter of American Orff-Schulwerk Association. Ewa is also a founder of the program "Music for the Small and Tall" where she teaches early childhood music and movement classes. Ewa is a member of the Utah Flute Association and serves on the board of the Utah Chapter of the American Orff Schulwerk Association.
Ewa's teaching philosophy is based on the Orff Schulwerk approach to teaching music. Carl Orff (1895-1982) was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana (1937). In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children. In this approach, students make music with activities that are enjoyable and natural for them such us songs, movements, improvisation and music games. Students learn musical concepts and improve their concentration as well as coordination and sensitivity to rhythm and tone through singing, dancing, and playing percussion instruments.
Ewa’s recent interests in early childhood music and its connections to neurology and language have been greatly influenced by Gordon’s theory. Edwin E. Gordon (1927-2015) is widely remembered as a researcher, teacher, author, editor, and lecturer. Through extensive research, Professor Gordon has made major contributions in the study of music aptitudes, audiation, music learning theory, tonal and rhythm patterns, and music development in infants and very young children. According to Gordon, though music is not a grammatical language, processes of learning music and language are remarkably similar. The first eighteen months are a critical period during which a child learns through exploration and unstructured guidance. The sensitive age is continuing until approximately five years old. Songs and chants without words in varied tonalities and meters are best to keep focus on music, not language.
I’d like to share a few words directly from Professor Gordon’s work (Music Learning Theory for Newborn and Young Children. Chicago: GIA Publications, 1990): “Music is unique to humans. Like the other arts, music is as basic as language to human development and existence. Through music a child gains insights into herself, into others, and into life itself. Perhaps most important, she is better able to develop and sustain her imagination. Without music, life would be bleak. Because a day does not pass without a child’s hearing or participating in some music, it is to a child’s advantage to understand music as thoroughly as she can. As a result, as she becomes older she will learn to appreciate, to listen to, and to partake in music that she herself believes to be good. Because of such cultural awareness, her life will have more meaning for her.”
Ewa's teaching philosophy is based on the Orff Schulwerk approach to teaching music. Carl Orff (1895-1982) was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana (1937). In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children. In this approach, students make music with activities that are enjoyable and natural for them such us songs, movements, improvisation and music games. Students learn musical concepts and improve their concentration as well as coordination and sensitivity to rhythm and tone through singing, dancing, and playing percussion instruments.
Ewa’s recent interests in early childhood music and its connections to neurology and language have been greatly influenced by Gordon’s theory. Edwin E. Gordon (1927-2015) is widely remembered as a researcher, teacher, author, editor, and lecturer. Through extensive research, Professor Gordon has made major contributions in the study of music aptitudes, audiation, music learning theory, tonal and rhythm patterns, and music development in infants and very young children. According to Gordon, though music is not a grammatical language, processes of learning music and language are remarkably similar. The first eighteen months are a critical period during which a child learns through exploration and unstructured guidance. The sensitive age is continuing until approximately five years old. Songs and chants without words in varied tonalities and meters are best to keep focus on music, not language.
I’d like to share a few words directly from Professor Gordon’s work (Music Learning Theory for Newborn and Young Children. Chicago: GIA Publications, 1990): “Music is unique to humans. Like the other arts, music is as basic as language to human development and existence. Through music a child gains insights into herself, into others, and into life itself. Perhaps most important, she is better able to develop and sustain her imagination. Without music, life would be bleak. Because a day does not pass without a child’s hearing or participating in some music, it is to a child’s advantage to understand music as thoroughly as she can. As a result, as she becomes older she will learn to appreciate, to listen to, and to partake in music that she herself believes to be good. Because of such cultural awareness, her life will have more meaning for her.”
