Clinician Biographies

Georgia A Newlin, DMA

Georgia A Newlin, DMA is an independent Music Education Consultant. She has taught in early childhood/public school music positions for sixteen years and at the collegiate level for sixteen. Currently, Georgia is called upon as a conductor for choral festivals and as a clinician for choral workshops, reading sessions, and intermediate grade methodology, as well as a consultant for curriculum planning. She teaches musicianship, conducting, and ensemble in Kodály programs at Indiana University, University of Hawai’i, and Plano at Southern Methodist University.

Georgia is Past President of the Organization of American Kodály Educators and is a member of The VoiceCare Network. She has had articles published in the Choral Journal, Orff Echo, Kodály Envoy, and Southwestern Musician, among others. She served for three years on the Music Educators Journal Advisory Committee of NAfME. Dr. Newlin has presented at conferences of the Organization of American Kodály Educators, International Kodály Society, American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Kodály Music Educators in Australia, Kodály Society of Ontario, and Association for Music in International Schools, as well as Choral/Music Education associations in eighteen states.

Georgia is founder/Artistic Director of the Valley Treble Voices, an adult treble choir in Harrisonburg, VA. She has been the Artistic Director of the Waldorf Choral Society in Garden City, NY; founder/Artistic Director of the Adelphi University Vocal Ensemble; and Artistic Director of The Susquehanna Valley Chorale Children’s Choir in Lewisburg, PA. In addition, she has been a faculty member of the James Madison University VocalArts camp as well as the Children’s Chorus of Maryland. Music Is Elementary has published her book, One Accord: Developing Part-Singing Skills in School-Age Musicians--Revised Edition (2023), and she is currently editor of their Crooked River Choral Project with three newly released titles (2022). Georgia is also published with the Ruth Dwyer Choral Series from Colla Voce.

Lillie Feierabend

Lillie Feierabend is known for her work with young children and for instilling a love of music within them. This is her fifteenth year at the University of Hartford Magnet School and seventeenth as a director for the Connecticut Children’s Chorus. In 1998 she received the Teacher of the Year Award from Canton Schools for her innovative and inclusive music programs.  In 2008, she again received her district’s Teacher of the Year Award and the Outstanding Elementary Music Educator Award from the Connecticut Music Educators Association. Lillie is a frequent clinician at local, state and national conferences and a guest conductor for regional honors choirs. She also teaches at Silver Lake College in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Gordon College in Boston, Anderson University in Indiana, and The Hartt School at the University of Hartford. She is Past President of KESNE, and a member of NAfME, OAKE, CMEA and ACDA, for which she served as National Children’s Honor Choir Chair for the 2010 Conference.

Esther Hargittai

Esther Hargittai was born in Hungary and has been immersed in music since the tender age of three, going through singing nursery, primary and secondary schools. Esther graduated 1995 in Choral Conducting and Music Education from the prestigious “Liszt Academy of Music” in Budapest. From 1996 – 2005, Esther worked for a well-known children's choir in Israel, the ‘Efroni Choir’, where she set up, conducted, and managed the “Young Efroni Choir”, taught music, and conducted choirs through all age groups in Israel. Esther had numerous performances in a variety of settings (national events, TV programs, charities), including representing Israel in the USA (Washington, Kennedy Centre, Salt Lake City) and France. She was co-author of a Kodály Method manual for music teachers in Israel, published by the Jerusalem Music Centre.  Since 2006 she is a tutor at the British Kodály Academy (BKA), running conducting and musicianship courses and workshops around the UK and abroad, and is part of the CPD development team. Since 2016 Esther teaches musicianship according to the Kodály philosophy at the world-renowned Guildhall School of Music and Drama/Junior Guildhall String Training Programme and is running the Junior Guildhall String Training Programme’s children's choir. Esther’s online professional courses with the BKA and on her independent website have gained wide acclaim in the professions. Her new book, ‘Jewish-Israeli Music’ has also just been published by the “Liszt Academy of Music” in Budapest/Kodály Institute.