| dc.description.abstract | The Association for Music in International Schools (AMIS) is an international music education organization that currently serves 93 international schools in 53 countries on five continents. AMIS supports the students, teachers, and music programs of its member schools through honor ensemble festivals, conferences, and workshops held at various locales across the world each year, with 21 events taking place throughout the 2017-2018 school year. Though the scope of the organization is global today, its roots can be traced back to the creation of a stand-alone Honor Band and Choir Festival at the American School of London (ASL) in 1975 that provided an honor ensemble experience for the top music students at international schools across the United Kingdom. This honor band and choir owed its existence to the two founders of the organization, Dick and Georgia Bassett. The main goal of this research was to highlight the efforts of two remarkable, yet largely unknown, music educators who were integral to the advancement of western art music in international schools around the world. The research questions guiding this ethnographical account of the Bassetts’ and AMIS were: (1) How did the Bassetts come about creating and growing the AMIS organization and, (2) how has that organization impacted music education world-wide for the last 42 years? The narrative was constructed through analysis of Mrs. Bassett’s personal memoirs; extensive interviews with the Bassetts and current AMIS Executive Director, Keith Montgomery; informal interviews with AMIS teachers and festival conductors; AMIS Executive Council documents, including founding documents, board meeting minutes, and festival repertoire lists; and the discussions of AMIS teachers on the AMIS Music Educators’ Facebook Page. Mr. Bassett, an accomplished clarinetist, and Mrs. Bassett, a vocalist and violinist, met at Oberlin Conservatory, where they were studying to become music educators. The Bassetts’ participation in honor ensembles in their formative years and in the “Oberlin in Salzburg” program - a year-long study abroad experience for Oberlin music majors at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg – provided the inspiration to look for opportunities for teaching overseas. “We were just sure we wanted to be different; to do something different” (Bassett G., Interview with author). Throughout their career, the Bassetts held teaching positions at the American Community School of Athens, Greece, the Community School in Tehran, Iraq, and ultimately in ASL in London, England, where the honor festivals began. Over the next twenty years, the festival grew in size and geographic scope, and other festivals were added to the calendar, as well. Officially founded in 1996, AMIS has continued to expand ever since to the global organization it is today. In 2014, the Bassetts officially retired from AMIS, but they still maintain active ties to the organization as consultants. AMIS creates musical experiences in international schools that would otherwise be unavailable to them: a professional network for teachers, unique learning opportunities for music students, and the promotion of music and music education in international schools around the globe. Because of the Bassetts, AMIS “brings hands together through music” (ibid.). | |
