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Sharon Little has been with the West Elgin Community Band since September
1995, when she joined the flute section. She took up the baton in January 1996
and has been talking dynamics, tuning, rhythm and notes ever since.
Her undergraduate degree is in Intellectual History, from Queen's University
in Kingston. She received her B Ed from Althouse College at the University of
Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. She is a multi-instrumentalist, with piano,
flute, bass and percussion as her principal instruments. She spent a lot of time
in high school in the music rooms, playing in all the bands and singing and
serving as accompanist for the choirs.
Starting her teaching career in rural schools in Hastings and Roseneath, she
subsequently moved back to London and joined the Thames Valley District School
Board. As an elementary classroom teacher, she taught grades 5 and 6 classroom,
plus French, Vocal, Strings and Band to gr. 5-8, Art, Physical Education, Drama,
History and Geography. While teaching she received the London Women's Teachers
Association Creativity Award and the Jimmy Lawson Humanitarian Award.
By 1996, she had already moved from a cozy downtown co-op apartment to a cash
crop farm in Western Elgin and had started her music studio, which continues to
this day. She works with both children and adults and teaches piano, recorder,
guitar, all string, brass and woodwind instruments, percussion, and hand drums.
No bagpipes. Yet.
Under her direction, the WECB has expanded from an adult only band to a true
community band. Currently, the band has members from 10-80 years old. Some of
the members started on their instruments in a Beginner Band. Others played
during high school and have sought the band out as a way to continue
playing.
In addition to the WECB, Sharon founded (in 2007) and directs the Treble
Makers Women's Choir, which invites women from 14 and up to enjoy an educational
performing choir. In the fall of 2008, she was asked to help with a new youth
band, The Joyful Noise Youth Band, made up of local, home-schooled students who
were looking for a way to learn to play an instrument.
Outside the local community, Sharon has worked for the National Music Camp of
Canada since 1978. For more than 20 years she
has served as the Staff Coordinator, hiring 17-25 year old counseling and
teaching staff. She credits NMC with a lot of her learning about teaching
music, even though her formal music training ended when she was 15 and had
completed her Gr. 10 piano. She is also active with the Ontario Music Educator's
Association, offering clinics at their annual conference and writing articles
for the Recorder, the professional journal of the OMEA.
For two years she was the Manager of the St. Thomas Horton Farmers' Market
and spent a number of years as a farmers' market vendor. She maintains a private
sound therapy practice, offers private and group workshops in music
improvisation. She is a freelance writer, with a variety of interests, including
music education, local food, farmers' markets, sustainability, and travel.
She lives in West Elgin, with hubby, Farmer Rick, a garden that she loves to
potter around in, and too many cats.
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