“I Have Become Young Again” Working with Adults through the Orff Institute

by Christine Schönherr   February 2019

(originally published as “Adult Group at the Orff Institute/Elderly Group in a Retirement Home” Reprinted with friendly permission of the editors of Orff-Schulwerk Informationen, from Orff-Schulwerk Informationen, Nr. 85, p. 243-244, 2011)

“Remaining alive means changing, changing with the times and through the times”- Carl Orff ¹

 These words from Carl Orff show how important it is to keep alive the ideas that lie at the roots of an elemental music and movement education. I have always experienced change and remaining alive as a leitmotif for the ongoing development of Orff’s educational ideas; for example, expanding the age span of teaching practice groups at the Orff Institute beyond the original school-age focus of the Schulwerk. In my time teaching at the Institute I have seen expansions in both directions, and I have worked with groups of 1½=year-old children with their mothers up to very old people in homes for the elderly.

”Adult education,” “Education for the Elderly“, and “Making use of age potential”  are slogans now being used in Austria in connection with the demographic change brought about by a longer life expectancy combined with a lower birth rate. Our society is caught

Doug Goodkin: Distinguished Service Award at Cincinnati AOSA Conference

By James Harding            February 2019

On November 8th, 2018, Doug Goodkin received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Orff Schulwerk Association, the highest honor that our national Orff organization bestows. Since the founding of the AOSA 50 years ago in 1968, only 28 teachers have received the DSA. Some other recipients

Doug with fellow DSA recipients Steve Calantropio and Peggy McCreary

known by our chapter are Barbara Grenoble (1990), Mary Shamrock (1999), Judith Thomas-Solomon (2004), Danai Gagne (2007), and Carol Erion (2009). Last year Avon Gillespie (2017), Doug’s mentor, posthumously received the award, and this year Peggy McCreary (2018) and Steve Calantropio (2018) also received the DSA.

Movement Accompaniment- A Core Subject in Orff Schulwerk

by Christine Schönherr   February 2019

(originally published as “Movement Accompaniment- a Core Subject” Reprinted with friendly permission of the editors of Orff-Schulwerk Informationen, from Orff-Schulwerk Informationen, Nr. 85, p. 175-176, 2011)

The title of my class “Movement Accompaniment” provokes a variety of ideas and questions in students at the Orff Institute. The question quickly arises: Does the one who accompanies have a subordinate position, in that he/she must follow the movement or has he/she also the possibility of leading the dancer, to give impulses for the movement through the music?

My first attempt to define the term usually helps to resolve this first question. “Movement Accompaniment” is a subject in which music and movement are perceived as integrated disciplines, defining and determining the content of the course. Music and movement are experienced as connected and are also explored and discussed as such.